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FRENCH MISSION LIFE ; 



OR, 



SKETCHES OF REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS AND 

OTHER EVENTS AMONG FRENCH ROMANISTS 

IN THE CITY OF DETROIT; 



FIVE LETTEES TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP 
RESIDING IN THAT CITY. 



BY REV. THOMAS CARTER. 



TKtxo^Qoxk : 

PUBLISHED BY CARLTONT & PORTER, 

200 MULBERRY-STREET. 

1857. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 
CARLTON & PORTER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New-York. 



INTRODUCTION. 



I have never liked reading a long intro- 
duction, and my reader will therefore ex- 
cuse me from the task of writing one. 

The incidents of the following sketches 
occurred, with five or six exceptions, in 
the city of Detroit during the time I was 
pastor of the French congregation in that 
place, a Church in the meantime having 
been organized by me under the direction 
of the Missionary Society of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. Several of them have 
appeared in the columns of the Christian 
Advocate and Journal, and, as I could not 
help learning, have been extensively read. 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

Subsequent particulars are added in 
this work, with new narratives never be- 
fore published ; and the whole are now put 
in this form, in the hope that they may 
serve to encourage Christians in the great 
work of spreading Scriptural holiness, and 
perhaps interest the heart of some one far 
from Christ, and induce him to turn and 
live. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

THE AGED CONVERT 7 

THE CONVERTED ROMANIST 11 

THE DYING: ROMANIST 14 

THE PROBATIONER 19 

THE MERITS OF CHRIST ALONE 26 

THE QUESTION DECIDED 28 

THE TWO FRIENDS 34: 

THE CONTRAST 39 

CONVERTING POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES 43 

THE SHEAVES COMING 49 

MAMMON VS. RELIGION 51 

DISAPPOINTED HOPES... 54 

AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION 58 

ROMANIST SCHOOLS — AN ILLUSTRATION OF THEIR 

EFFECTS 63 

A PRIEST'S TESTIMONY AS TO ROMANIST VOTES AND RO- 
MANIST SCHOOLS 70 

THE SINCERE ROMANIST 81 

ISABEL 86 

MATHDLDE 90 

ARE YOU FAITHFUL TO YOUR CLASS-MEETINGS? 92 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE HUMILITY OP BISHOP HEDDING 96 

A JUDGMENT OP GOD i 97 

HOW SISTER LE BLANC WAS CONVERTED 100 

A SUDDEN DESTRUCTION 105 

THE DYING SINNER 107 

A FRENCH COUNT 109 

JOSEPH AND HIS FATHER 112 

SYSTEMATIC GIVING 122 

LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OP DETROIT 127 

CONCLUSION 167 



FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 



THE AGED CONVERT. 

It was a beautiful sight to me, that old man, 
as he stood before the altar and responded 
to the questions contained in our baptismal 
form. There was such a deep and marked 
solemnity in his appearance and in his tone 
of voice, that his answers impressed every- 
one with the fact that he was in earnest. It 
is always affecting to see the extremes of life 
yielding to Christ. It is touching to see the 
little child coming to him ; but it is thrilling 
to behold the old sinner, who, you expected, 
was hardened, and almost forsaken of God, 
bowing down before the Saviour, whom he 
has so long neglected. But the case I have 
referred to is one of peculiar interest. That 



8 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

old man was born and brought up in a 
Church which taught him that when he was 
baptized he was a Christian; and in that 
Church, the Church of Rome, he lived until 
he was sixty-three years of age. At that 
time he commenced attending our French 
mission, and as soon as he began to hear the 
word of God explained, a new interest 
seemed to be awakened within him. He 
spoke English very imperfectly. The French 
was his native language ; and as I read or 
expounded the Gospel in his own tongue, 
he seemed to drink in every word, like a 
thirsty man. 'Not being able to read, (and 
this is too often the case with the French 
Canadians), he was evidently endeavoring 
to find out as much as he could of the way 
to God by the sermons which I preached. 

I frequently visited him at his house ; and 
when I read a passage to him, it is impossible 
to describe the interest he manifested in its 
sacred truths. He had had a Bible in the 
house for a long time, though neither him- 
self, nor his wife, nor his son, could read. 
The way it came into his possession was sin- 



THE AGED CONVERT. V 

gular enough. One of the priests of the 
Romish Church had handed it to his son, 
telling him to destroy it ; he had brought it 
home, and it had been for years in the house. 
"I often said to myself," his wife remarked 
to me one day, " I'll put that devil-book in 
the fire ; but something kept me from it." 
And so it had continued lying about until 
now God had brought it into use. 

One day he told me that God had con- 
verted his heart, and he wished to become a 
member of our Church ; and, as I remarked 
at the commencement, it was a beautiful 
sight to me, the old man, when he stood up 
to be baptized,* as he thus openly renounced 
the world and the errors of his more early 
years. 

About four months passed, during which 
time his regularity and faithfulness to the 
class and prayer meetings were observed by 
every one; observed particularly, because 
sometimes he had hardly the strength to 

• I do not re-baptize persons who come to us from the 
Church of Rome, except at their special request. In 
this case it was requested. 



10 FKENCH MISSION LIFE. 

walk from his house to the Church ; and his 
tottering steps and trembling voice gave 
unmistakable evidence of the effort which it 
cost him to get there. 

And then he laid down that feeble frame ; 
and before his six months' probation were 
up in the Church below, I have no doubt 
God took his glorified spirit to the Church 
above. 

He seemed to have no fear of death, no 
fear of the future, but a calm, sweet, steady 
resting upon the power and willingness of 
Christ to save his soul ; and thus he left us. 

And although two years have fled since 
that old man passed away, yet my eyes fill 
with tears as I remember his faithfulness, 
his prayers, his exhortations ; and my heart 
fills with joy at the thought that I shall soon 
meet him among the ransomed of God. 

Can it be possible? How transporting 

the thought ! Brother De L has been 

two years with Christ, and now sees him as 
he is. Glory to God ! I shall soon follow 
him. 



THE CONVERTED ROMANIST. 11 



THE CONVERTED ROMANIST. 

" I will give nothing to the devil's 
Church." 

Thus spoke a middle-aged French Soman 
Catholic of Detroit, when applied to for a 
small contribution toward the erection of 
the German Methodist Episcopal Church 
which now stands on the corner of Beaubien 
and Croghan streets in the city above named. 

Brought up in the Church of Home, he 
had arrived some years previously in Detroit, 
which was now his residence ; and here, in 
every new Protestant Church planted in a 
city which was once the undisputed home 
of Eomanism, he beheld a new engine of 
Satan's power, and did not hesitate to ex- 
press it openly. 

And yet there were some things good in 
that plain-spoken man. Tears before he 
had become a bold advocate of total absti- 
nence, and while spirituous liquors were 
almost universally used among his country- 
men, he was fearless in denouncing them. 



12 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

And though prejudiced in his religious 
views, yet he would, with candor, listen to 
others; and whatever he believed, he was 
certainly sincere in that belief. 

One day a gentleman handed him a New 
Testament in French. He looked at it, took 
it home, and began to read it. He had not 
one single Protestant relative. His wife, his 
children, his parents, were all of the Church 
of Rome. His Testament, therefore, was 
read in secret, and as he read he became 
interested in it. It seemed new to him, and 
yet it was just like dim thoughts which had 
crossed his mind in early years when God's 
Spirit moved upon his heart in the midst 
of outward superstition. He began at night 
to steal away to hear Protestant sermons, 
and became earnest in seeking the living 
way. 

On one occasion, as he read his Testament, 
he came to the passage, " Come unto me, all 
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." Here his mind seemed to 
fasten. Our blessed Redeemer applied this 
passage with power to his heart. His wife 



THE CONVERTED ROMANIST. 13 

soon became partner in his feelings, and 
together they sought, now in this Church, 
now in that, some spiritual guidance. One 
Sabbath morning they entered the Second 
Methodist Episcopal Church, corner of Con- 
gress and Randolph streets, where Rev. 
George Taylor, of the Michigan Conference, 
was preaching. Their hearts melted during 
the prayer and under the word ; and as they 
left, one said to the other, with tearful eyes, 
" This is my home — this is my home." It 
was not long before they both thought they 
found the peace of God, and soon afterward 
united with the Second Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

When the French Methodist Episcopal 
Church was commenced, they both became 
members of it, and long and earnestly la- 
bored for its prosperity. Many persons in 
the city of Detroit will remember Brother 

P , as he went from house to house with 

Bibles and tracts, or as he endeavored to 
explain that word of life which he had 
found so precious to his own heart. He 
subsequently removed from the city, and 



14: FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

when I left Detroit I understood he was in 
the city of Quebec, among his own country- 
men, engaged in the same work. 

If these lines should ever reach him, they 
may serve to remind him of the continued 
affection of his former pastor ; of moments 
when they prayed together, or when they 
visited together the French settlements 
around Detroit ; and of the hope he cherishes 
that he and his family will continue to enjoy 
that same firm trust in Christ which they 
obtained through Brother Taylor's preaching 
in Detroit. 



THE DYING ROMANIST. 

"I wish you would call and see a gentleman 
in street," said a friend to me one day. 

"I will, but why?" 

" Perhaps you may do him some good." 

"Who is he?" 

"He is a French Roman Catholic, and 
appears to be candid, and rather intelligent. 
He has been sick for some time." 



THE DYING ROMANIST. 15 

Shortly afterward, I called at the place 
described to me, and found a gentleman in 
whom I soon became much interested. He 
was Canadian French, and pretty well edu- 
cated. After one or two interviews, he said 
he would send his children to our French 
Mission School, which we were then holding 
in the Second Methodist Episcopal Church 
in Congress-street, Detroit. As I took my 
leave of him I left a French Bible with him ; 
and from the apparent candor with which 
he conversed, I began to indulge the hope 
that his sickness might be the means of lead- 
ing him to Christ. 

On the succeeding Sabbath his children 
were not present. When I saw him again, 
I inquired the reason, and he replied, 
frankly : 

" It is against my religion to send them 
to your school." 

" But we will teach them to love Christ, 
and to be good children." 

" Our priests are not willing that I should 
send them, and so I must not." 

It seemed to me that some influence had 



16 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

been operating on his mind since I last 
spoke to him, and I referred to the Bible I 
had left. "With the same frankness he re- 
plied: 

" That is a Protestant Bible, and it is con- 
trary to my religions views to read it." 

I did not attempt to argue with him. It 
seemed to me there was a better mode, 
especially in his state of health. I procured a 
Roman Catholic New Testament. I brought 
it to him, and read a passage aloud, and asked 
him to read it, telling him it was the Testa- 
ment of his own Church. He promised me 
that he would, and with some hope yet of 
his conversion to God, by a change of heart, 
I left it with him. 

Again I called, but could not ascertain 
that he had the least interest in the volume 
I had placed with him. 

One day I asked him kindly if he thought 
that his sins were forgiven, and that he was 
prepared to die. "With the utmost prompt- 
ness, and with a certain degree of dryness, 
he replied: 

" I have been prepared." 



THE DYING ROMAOTST. 17 

Without asking him a direct question, I 
ascertained that he meant the ceremony 
usually called extreme unction, performed 
by the Roman Catholic priesthood, for per- 
sons supposed to be near death. As I be- 
held the man lying before me, my heart was 
deeply touched. He was passing into eter- 
nity. He was soon to know his sentence. 
That sentence was to be eternal joy or 
misery. And he was passing to the presence 
of his Judge, leaning upon an outward cere- 
mony, and trusting to that for acceptance 
with him. I wept while I talked with him, 
and while I explained to him the necessity 
of a change of heart and a change of char- 
acter. I told him he was to feel his own 
guilt, and his own unworthiness before God, 
and then trust to Christ's death alone, as the 
great atonement for his sins : that if he 
would ask the Saviour, he would forgive 
him ; he would change him ; he would give 
him the witness in himself that he had be- 
come a child of God. 

For the first time since our acquaintance, 
I observed that he manifested some symp- 
2 



18 FKENCH MISSION LIFE. 

toms of anger and dissatisfaction, but which 
almost instantly disappeared as I referred to 
the regard which I entertained for him. 
While I spoke he listened. When I called 
again, and spoke of Christ, he listened ; but 
I could never discover that he had the 
slightest religious feeling. There was no 
kindling of the eye when God's great love 
was referred to. There was no glistening 
tear when the Saviour's sufferings were men- 
tioned. It is true, there was a crucifix at 
the head of his bed, and the image of our 
Saviour was there stretched upon it ; but he 
did not seem to realize the difference be- 
tween the dead image of Christ beside him, 
and the real, living presence of Christ within 
him. 

And there he lay, anointed, Latin prayers 
said over him, blessed by his priest, to fit 
him to appear before God. How many 
millions have crossed over Jordan leaning 
on the same broken staff! What perdition 
will rest upon men calling themselves pastors 
of the flock, who permit them to live and 
die thus! With what feelings will they 



THE PROBATIONER. 19 

meet these souls at the great day of 
account ! 

He died. 

" How did he die ?" said I to a neighbor. 

" For two hours before his death his cries 
were such, on account of the fear of death, 
that the persons in the room put their fin- 
gers in their ears to shut out the sounds. 55 

Is this the way the Christian warrior ends 
his combat ? Thank God, no ! All through 
his pilgrimage he has felt, with John, that 
"he that believeth hath the witness in him- 
self. 55 He can say with Paul, as he ap- 
proaches the final conflict, " To depart is to 
be with Christ; 55 and he rather inquires, " O 
death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where 
is thy victory ?" 



THE PROBATIONER. 
" Otez mon nqraP 

"Nay, brother, we wish you to remain 
with us, 55 I replied in French ; " if you will 
only do the will of God. We are not willing 



20 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

to take off your name, but we want you to 
be a Christian, and get to heaven." 

With a very decided manner, he again 
spoke : 

" ]STo ; 6tez mon nomP 

This being a request to take his name off, 
and seeing he was positive, there was no 
alternative left, and with much regret we 
took his name off our Church book. 

I will present the reader with a short his- 
tory of the person above referred to. 

French Canadian by birth, born in the 
vicinity of Montreal, he had been brought 
up a member of theHoman Catholic Church. 
He was now of the age of about forty-five 
years, a carpenter by trade, and, with his 
wife and five children, had lived for the past 
year or two in the city of Detroit. A short 
period previously to the time above referred 
to he had become interested in the religious 
services which were being held every Sab- 
bath, and twice during the week in the 
French language ; and at one time regularly 
attended them, and while he did so, joined 
with us on probation. The moderate use of 



THE PROBATIONER. 21 

intoxicating liquors, however, became a 
snare to him. Returning to an old habit, 
with it returned attachment to old com- 
panions, and doubts and fears as to his right 
to abandon the Church of Rome. Then 
came neglect of the class-meeting, and in- 
difference to spiritual religion. I visited 
him, conversed with him, prayed with him ; 
and after some time, seeing that his beset- 
ting sin was not abandoned, reminded him 
that such a practice was contrary to our 
rules, as well as contrary to the Bible. Still 
he continued unchanged. We then appointed 
a prayer-meeting at his house, with his con- 
sent, hoping that by this means his heart 
would be roused to a sense of his condition. 
It seemed to have no effect. I was finally 
obliged to give him notice to appear on an 
evening fixed, to consider whether he should 
not be dropped; and at his request, as I 
have already related, we took off his name. 

Several months passed. He no longer 
attended our services, and I feared he was 
lost to us forever. 

One day I was surprised by a visit from 



22 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

him. " My mind," said he, "is troubled. I 
do not know what to do. I wish you would 
go with me, and we will talk to the priest 
together." This was rather a singular re- 
quest, but reasonable, when I understood 
his state of mind. He seemed to be con- 
scientiously seeking the right way, and 
feared to trust the priest's arguments, as 
well as what he had heard from me, without 
a reply, and wished to know whether I could 
answer the priest, and whether the priest 
could answer me. 

I told him I would go, and appointed the 
next day, at two o'clock. At the hour fixed 
he came, and with his daughter, a young 
woman, and a Frenchman, one of his rela- 
tives, we called at the priest's house. Directly 
a young man in the sacerdotal dress entered 
the room into which we had been ushered, and 
shook hands with us all round ; and when he 
ascertained our business, asked us to wait a 
minute, and going out, immediately returned 
with another person, apparently a priest also. 

"What particular point do you wish to 
talk about?" 



THE PKOBATIONER. 23 

" Monsieur will say," he replied, referring 
to me. 

Seeing no necessity to be backward in 
stating what I believed, I remarked that one 
point of discussion might properly be the 
praying to the saints, which we regarded as 
idolatry. 

Starting up, the larger of the two stood 
before me with his arm raised. "Do you 
mean to accuse the Catholic Church of 
idolatry?'' 

I kept my seat, and replied calmly, in 
substance, that I meant what I said. 

"Do you mean to accuse the Catholic 
Church of idolatry?" again he cried, in a 
phrensy of passion, as if he would crush me. 

"I do," I answered firmly and quietly. 
His arm lowered ; he receded from his threat- 
ening attitude, and took his seat. I then 
asked him to show by the Bible their right 
to pray to the saints, and my friend who 
came with me produced his Roman Catholic 
New Testament in French, and they imme- 
diately demanded proof that that was a New 
Testament at all. 



24: FEENCH MISSION LIFE. 

" Then we will be content to see the proof 
in your own Bible, if you deny this one : 
show us that." 

This, however, they hesitated to do, and 
passed from one subject to another, during 
which they gave me an opportunity of refer- 
ring to other points, without, however, losing 
sight of the original one. At times the first 
one who entered descended to abusive lan- 
guage ; and I was obliged to reprove him, 
by telling him I was in his own house, and 
came to talk to him kindly, and for a while 
afterward he controlled himself. 

" "We believe," said I, " much in loving 
God, and loving others, and being filled with 
the disposition which he will give us." 

I was surprised at the reply I received 
from the one who entered last. It was in 
substance : "0,1 do not care for any such 
humbug." I can hardly believe that he 
meant to say that he regarded such doctrines 
as humbug. I suppose rather the expression 
arose from a moment of warmth. 

On one occasion the celibacy of the clergy 
was referred to, and I took the New Testa- 



THE PBOBATIONER. 2 5 

ment already mentioned, and read from 
1 Tim. iii, 2 : "A bishop, then, must be blame- 
less ; the husband of one wife." 

One of them appeared to be utterly at a 
loss what to reply; but, after a moment's 
pause, the other exclaimed : " O, that means 
the husband of one wife before he became a 
bishop." 

After I had repeatedly returned to the 
original question, and asked them to give 
me their authority from their own Bible for 
praying to the saints, one of them went out, 
and shortly returned with a large Bible, and 
referred me to Zechariah i, 12. I told them 
that this was not any proof of the doctrine ; 
and then, seeming to feel the weakness of 
their ground, they remarked : " Well, we do 
not command the people to pray to the 
saints at all ; we only recommend it." 

" But," I replied, " if a thing is not author- 
ized by the word of God, you should not 
recommend it." Yery soon they both rather 
abruptly left the room ; and after an inter- 
view of nearly two hours, we were left 
alone. Finding our way to the front door, 



26 FEENCH MISSION LIFE. 

we left the house ; and when I parted from 
him with whom I had gone, I very naturally 
and anxiously inquired, in my own mind, 
what effect our conversation would have 
upon his future course. This I hope to be 
able to give in a subsequent sketch. 



THE MERITS OF CHRIST ALONE. 

"O yes, we can find the peace which 
Christ promised to his disciples, and look up 
to God with confidence that he is our Father ; 
and then we feel in our hearts that our 
sins are all forgiven." These words were 
addressed to a Roman Catholic gentleman 
on whom I had called, and he immediately 
replied in substance : 

" I believe so too, if we merit it." 
" "We do not merit anything ; we cannot 
merit anything." 

" Yes we do. How can we be forgiven, 
then? We must have some merits," he 
replied rather warmly. 



THE MEEITS OF CHEIST ALONE. 27 

u Christ has merits ; he purchased all for 
us by his blood. If we come to him, and 
lay our sins on him, we are forgiven." 

His manner changed immediately, and he 
said: 

"But any one may come, then, after he 
has sinned long, and has grown old?" 

" Tes, if his heart is not too hardened by 
repeated refusals to yield himself to God. 
Any one who feels his guilt ; any one with 
a broken heart may come to God, and at 
any time." 

" But how are we to know it ? How can 
we know when we have come, and when 
God has forgiven us?" 

This was just what I desired he would 
ask, and I said to him : 

" In Komans viii, 16, there is an answer 
to your question : ' The Spirit itself beareth 
witness with our spirit that we are the chil- 
dren of God.' God the Father created us ; 
God the Son redeemed us ; and it is God the 
Holy Ghost who comforts us by this witness, 
and who sanctifies us. We therefore need 
not the voice of any earthly pastor to give 



28 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

us absolution, for this witness of God is 
greater, is surer, is far more satisfactory to 
the heart.' 5 

He seemed convinced that what I said 
was the truth, and I left him serious and 
thoughtful. 



THE QUESTION DECIDED. 

My reader will remember the interview 
with two priests of the Church of Rome 
narrated in a previous sketch, and the man- 
ner of its termination. For some days after- 
ward I saw nothing of T. Jean Le Monde, at 
whose request I had gone. I then called at 
his house, and saw his family. The next 
day he came to see me, and requested me 
not to call again. 

" My wife," said he, " I am afraid, will 
abuse you. I would rather you would not 
go." 

" I am not afraid of being abused." 

" But I would rather you would not go." 



THE QUESTION DECIDED. 29 

" "Well, if you prefer it, I will not go, until 
you think it is best." 

I had some further conversation with him, 
and he promised me that he would come to 
our services. After all, however, I was 
afraid he would not, and I was agreeably 
surprised to find him at our next class-meet- 
ing, and one of the congregation on the suc- 
ceeding Sabbath. 

With humility and simplicity, and great 
seriousness, he stated his desire to return to 
God, and again joined with us on probation. 

"Will he be faithful?" I said to myself. 
"Will he resist the influences of his former 
priest, and the influences of his family ? Will 
he resist his former besetting sin ? Can he 
stand the fire of persecution ?" I knew the 
grace of God was sufficient for him, but I 
knew also that it required, on his part, an 
earnest seeking of that grace, as well as a 
decided, fixed purpose of mind. 

He took up his Bible and began to learn 
to read. He could spell a little previously ; 
and I observed that the Eoman Catholic 
New Testament which he had produced on 



30 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

the occasion referred to in the last sketch 
was frequently with him. I was glad of it, 
for I knew if he studied faithfully even the 
Koman Catholic translation of the word of 
God, with a sincere desire to find and follow 
the right way, it would make him a Protest- 
ant. I thought it looked old and well used ; 
and more than once the image of that earnest 
man has presented itself to my imagination, 
as he sat alone, after a day of toil, spelling 
out, word by word, the Divine volume. 

Months passed. A single meeting had 
hardly been missed by him, and yet I was 
still debarred from visiting at his house. 

I was a little startled one evening when 
he told me that some person who knew him 
when he was a Roman Catholic, and who 
was indignant that he should renounce that 
Church, had declared that he would murder 
him if he continued to attend our Church. 

" But," said he, "I will come ;" and I have 
no doubt in my own mind that he held him- 
self ready, if necessary, to offer up his life 
for Christ's sake. 

His probation was up. I received him 



THE QUESTION DECIDED. 31 

into full membership, and still he was 
faithful. 

" Once," he remarked, " when I came to 
your church I looked this way and that way 
to see that no one was looking at me, and 
then I hurried in as fast as I could, fearing 
that some one would observe me enter. 
]STow, when I come to the door, I look this 
way and that, so as to find some one to 
bring in with me." 

About this time our enemies spread abroad 
the report that we paid persons money for ' 
joining our Church, which caused him to 
remark to me one day : " Yes, I have been 
well paid, for the value of the whole city of 
Detroit is not equal to the peace which I 
have received in my heart." 

It is now nearly a year since I received 
him into full membership, and he is still 
faithful. He has been appointed one of the 
stewards of our Church, and is known to the 
world not simply as one who has renounced 
Romanism, but as a religious man — a con- 
verted man. 

He was at our last class-meeting, (he is 



32 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

always at these meetings,) and made the 
closing prayer. I remarked one passage of 
it particularly It was that God would keep 
him faithful. My heart and lips pronounced 
an earnest Amen ! 

I now frequently visit his family, where 
his wife always gives me a cordial welcome. 
I see her often in our congregation, and I 
have understood from him, that it is more 
than a year since she has attended the 
Church of Eome. She is now willing to 
read his New Testament, or the Bible, for 
herself. Not long since she told him that 
at the time she was opposed to him the priest 
told her to burn his New Testament. As 
she did not do it then, I am sure she will 
not now. His four younger children are 
members of our Sabbath school. His daugh- 
ter, the young woman who accompanied us 
when we visited the priest, who was then a 
determined Romanist, was taken sick a few 
weeks ago, and the physician seeing she was 
French, casually asked her what Church she 
belonged to. 

"I am not a Roman Catholic, neither am 



THE QUESTION DECIDED. 33 

I a member of any Protestant Church, but 
I.believe in the Church my father belongs to." 

Her heart also is interested in what per- 
tains to Christ. She seems to understand 
the nature of that inward change required 
by the Gospel. May God lead her soon to 
know its power ! 

And if my own heart has often failed me 
while laboring in this mission-field, if my 
hands have sometimes drooped as I beheld 
difficulties rise before me, there is a heav- 
enly joy deep in the recesses of my soul, 
when I think of meeting more than one of 
the members of the family I have described 
among those who have entered the resting- 
place of the redeemed. 

Then who would not sow in tears — who 
would not go forth weeping — when God 
himself assures us we shall come again re- 
joicing? Yes, doubtless come, bringing our 
sheaves with us. 

Then let Christians labor on. It is Heav- 
en's peculiar work. Cease not, rest not, until 
the Master himself bids us enter his own 
harvest field. * * * 

3 



34 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

It is now over a year since I wrote the 
foregoing sketch. I see no longer the familiar 
face of Jean Le Monde. Many hundred 
miles separate me from the field of labor I 
then occupied. 

But I left him at his post. Two of his 
children had been some time probationers in 
the Church ; one of them a fine young man ; 
the other a young girl, who, as I bade her 
good-by, stood and sobbed in silence before 
me. 

His wife too, after lingering long, joined 
just before I left, and is no doubt a con- 
verted woman. 



THE TWO FRIENDS. 

Fajb off, amid the warm surges of the 
Indian Ocean, Dex St. Jorre was nurtured in 
his sea-bound home. 

A little below the equator, and directly 
south of Arabia and Persia, lie the beautiful 
islands of Seychelle, a word hardly less 
euphonious than its English pronunciation, 



THE TWO FEIENDS. 35 

Sea-shell. There flourish the orange-tree, 
the banana, and every tropical fruit. There 
is breathed an air filled with that delicious 
softness, known only to southern skies, and 
these always tempered by the cooling ocean 
breeze. 

In one of these islands he was born and 
educated. The French language was his 
native tongue, a language well suited to the 
nature of the place, and the genius of its in- 
habitants, a language proverbial for its grace 
and beauty. 

At twenty years of age, love of adventure, 
or of the sea, led him to embark on a whaling 
vessel, and some strange providence con- 
ducted him to our country. 

I first met with him in Detroit, at our 
Mission Church, two years after he had left 
his native island. He had just come from 
the Albion Seminary. He had been there 
some months, engaged in study, under the 
direction of the beloved brother who but 
recently has gone from among us, to join, I 
doubt not, the spirits of the just in heaven. 
It seems hardly possible that he is here no 



36 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

longer. His warm grasp of the hand, his 
open smile, seem but as of yesterday. I re- 
fer to Dr. Hinman. 

Dex St. Jorre brought with him a certifi- 
cate from the college of correct deport- 
ment. 

Again and again I recognized his counte- 
nance. I invited him to call on me. When 
he came I endeavored to ascertain his 
spiritual condition. I learned that his father 
was a nominal Protestant, and his mother a 
member of the Church of Rome, and that 
he himself had lived a life far from God. 
His heart, however, had become like ground 
prepared for the good seed, and as I spoke 
to him of conversion, and yielding himself 
to Christ, there was a manifest willingness 
on his part, a willingness which soon resulted 
in his conversion to God. Now he became 
a regular attendant at our prayer and class 
meetings, and in the most simple and un- 
affected manner stated that he felt within 
him that God had pardoned his sins, and 
made him his child. 

He now settled himself in Detroit. A 



THE TWO FRIENDS. ' 37 

favorable situation opened to him. He 
joined our Church, became a faithful Church 
member and Sabbath-school teacher. I rec- 
ollect well one of his principal character- 
istics at that time was great regularity in 
religious duty. At the public service, at 
the class-meeting, at the Sabbath-school, 
whoever else was absent, he was always 
there. 

In the same business, in the same room 
with Dex St. Jorre, was a young Parisian, 
of fine manners and education. He was re- 
cently from France, and had been brought 
up, and still was, a Roman Catholic. I shall 
call him Henrie ; propriety forbids my giv- 
ing his real name. One day I said to St. 
Jorre : 

" Perhaps you may lead Henrie to Christ. 
Invite him to our meetings." 

"I will try," said he. 

It was not long before they were insepara- 
ble companions. Every Sabbath they list- 
ened together to my preaching. Every day 
they went together to and from their busi- 
ness. They occupied together the same 



38 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

sleeping-room, and I could plainly see that 
St. Jorre's motive in being so frequently with 
him was the right one — the only one which 
can allow a Christian a close intimacy with 
a worldly man, that of leading him to a like 
precious faith. 

Henrie now was always at the prayer and 
class meetings, as well as our public services ; 
and soon he spoke of a change of heart, and 
his voice became musical with the praises 
of the Saviour. He was a fine singer, and 
I can now almost hear his French hymns, as 
he sang them with a strong and manly 
voice. 

Many months he was faithful. None 
could be more so, as far as I could judge. I 
became much attached to him. On one 
point I sometimes, however, had some fear. 
He seemed unwilling to give up entirely the 
idea that the Virgin Mary would in some 
way assist him as his patroness and friend. 
It was deeply rooted in his heart to look to 
some one else, in addition to Christ, for 
help, and it was hard to induce him to cling 
to the Saviour only. He said he only re- 



THE CONTRAST. 39 

spected her, and as in every other respect 
he had apparently renounced the errors of 
Rome, I trusted that in this also he would 
soon clearly see the truth. 



THE CONTRAST. 

Dex St. Joeee and Henrie were still faithful. 
One day the latter called at my house, and 
showed me a letter he had written to his 
father, who held some office under the gov- 
ernment, in France, in which he urged him 
to prayer and the study of the Bible. It was 
pleasant to think that thus a voice was going 
from our mission back to France. 

But I must now pass onward to another 
scene ; I must, in sorrow, write the words, 
Henrie fell! How or why, I need not 
relate. We were obliged to take his name 
from our book. Soon he left the city, going 
I hardly knew whither, and leaving us with 
the sorrowful conviction that he had fallen 
from religion and from God. 



4:0 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

Another period of time passed, and he 
returned sick. I found him at the house of 
a kind French Protestant family. Poverty- 
had come upon him.. Alone, in a strange 
country, he felt the need of friends, and he 
found them among those who knew him 
before he had forsaken God. 

I called to see him, and was deeply touched 
at his condition. I had always loved him. I 
loved him, perhaps, for that inexpressible 
charm which is found in the manner of 
almost every well-educated Frenchman, but 
I loved him especially because, for months, 
his warm heart seemed to be given up to the 
service of Christ. How I pitied him ! A 
painful disease had taken hold of him, with 
a very doubtful prospect of recovery, and, 
what was worse, I feared he was not prepared 
to die. 

He was glad to see me, and I conversed 
with him for some time on his religious con- 
dition. It seemed to be vague ; and there 
seemed to be no quiet, no rest in his heart. 
I inquired for his Bible. It was in his trunk, 
or some place out of sight, and I understood 



THE CONTRAST. 41 

afterward, if any one called to see him who 
was a Eoman Catholic, and his Bible was in 
view, he was careful to conceal it. I visited 
him frequently, prayed with him, and spoke 
to him as plainly as I could of a preparation 
for death, and he seemed always thankful 
and pleased. 

One day I called, and he was gone. He 
had managed to be carried in a carriage to 
the wharf, and had gone to some place in 
the country. 

" Why did he leave ?" I inquired. 

u O, he w r as restless, and would not be 
contented." 

The next I heard of him he was dead. 
And now, as I look back and remember the 
point on which he erred, I would impress 
my reader with the solemn truth, that as one 
little sin unforsaken will destroy the soul, so 
the trust in aught save Christ will bring an 
equally terrible ruin. None but Christ can 
save, and Christ must do it all himself. Ho 
saint can help. Toplady was right when he 
said, in reference to acts of contrition, what 
is equallv true in reference to other saviours: 



42 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

"These for sin could not atone, 
Thou must save, and thou alone ; 
In my hand no price I bring, 
Simply to thy cross I cling." 

Yet when I remember Henrie's frankness 
and apparent desire to find the true way, my 
wish almost shapes itself into a hope that ere 
he died he was led to Christ; that he may 
have felt like the great champion of Koman- 
ism, Cardinal Bellarmine, who on his death- 
bed was asked, " To which of the saints will 
you turn?" "It is better to turn unto 
Christ," he replied. Sometimes I hope I 
shall hear his voice again in a clearer, 
louder, sweeter strain, among those who 
have come out of great tribulation, and have 
washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb, whose full-toned 
harmony is like the voice of many waters, 
as it swells away among the mansions of the 
blessed. 



CONVERTING- POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES. 43 



CONVERTING POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

Jean Le Monde, referred to in a previous 
sketch, continued to love his Bible after his 
conversion. He loved to study out word 
after word, and verse after verse, as well as 
he was able. But he could not read well 
enough or quickly enough to satisfy the 
longing of his heart to become acquainted 
with the word of God. He thirsted for spir- 
itual knowledge. 

In the same quarter of the city with him- 
self resided a French gentleman and his 
lady, of good education, but of a worldly 
spirit. They were both Boman Catholics, 
and had been in this country about a year. 
How Jean Le Monde became acquainted 
with them, or how they became willing to 
read the word of God, I am not able to 
state ; but there he took his Bible, and there 
he sat down, while Mr. Calzin read chapter 
after chapter to him, simply as a matter of 
courtesy to his friend, without taking the 
slightest interest in what he read himself. 



44 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

Thus was many an evening spent at the 
house of Mr. Calzin after the labor of the 
day was finished. Occasionally I heard Jean 
Le Monde refer to the friend who read the 
Bible to him ; but I had not yet seen him, 
and two reasons prevented him from attend- 
ing our services : first, he cared nothing for 
them ; and, second, he was passionately fond 
of shooting, and spent his Sabbaths in grati- 
fying his taste in this respect. 

After some time had elapsed, I learned 
that he asked questions as he read, and 
seemed glad to converse with Jean Le 
Monde on the subjects which presented 
themselves in the course of their reading. 
Still later I ascertained that he had become 
decidedly interested in the study of the 
Bible. 

One day I called at his house. I was much 
pleased with his appearance. I found both 
himself and wife persons of more than ordi- 
nary intelligence. They received me with 
the politeness and peculiar empressement 
which is so natural to the French character; 
and I observed, after a few minutes' conver- 



CONVERTING POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES. 45 

sation, that what I had heard was true — 
that they were both interested in the Bible 
and religion. 

I have seldom met with persons so deeply 
attentive as I spoke to them of our Saviour, 
and of a change of heart, and so grateful 
after having knelt and prayed with them. 
They seemed to be awakened to their con- 
dition as sinners ; and yet, as I visited them 
again and again, they told me frankly they 
had not peace with God. 

" Can you not believe in Christ ?" said I 
one day. " He died for you, wishes to for- 
give you now, and has suffered in your 
place." 

" O, I have sinned too much ; I dare not 
believe just yet; I must be better before I 
come." 

I endeavored to explain to him this error, 
so universal, which not only clings to the 
Romanist, but haunts the Protestant in every 
step as he approaches God. I endeavored 
to show him the monstrous presumption and 
pride of supposing that we could ourselves 
prepare our hearts, and that the only way 



46 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

to grow better was to throw ourselves upon 
his mercy as miserable, lost sinners, to trust 
in him, to believe in him, and look to him 
for grace to make us better. 

For a while I seemed to accomplish no- 
thing, and I began to fear he would relapse 
again into indifference. At every visit his 
answer was almost the same ; and yet they 
were always delighted when I prayed with 
them, and spoke to them of God. Romanism 
they had virtually renounced, though I had 
said little to them on the subject. My con- 
versation had chiefly been on a change of 
heart, and the atonement of Christ ; but I 
could plainly see the reason of its rejection 
in an expression something like this : 

" We find such a difference between the 
Bible and the Roman Catholic Church" 

I remarked that they had not yet become 
regular attendants of our Church on the 
Sabbath, and I inquired how he spent that 
day. This brought out the fact to which I 
have already referred, and he frankly stated 
that he usually went to the country, and 
amused himself with his gun. 



(XXNYERTING POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES. 47 

" Do you think it is wrong?" said he. " I 
have no other amusement ; I am confined to 
my business through the week, and the state 
of my health seems to require some exer- 
cise." 

I endeavored to explain to him the obli- 
gation to observe, the Sabbath. He listened, 
but I greatly feared he would not yield this 
point. To regard the Sabbath as a day of 
pleasure, is so deeply rooted in the hearts of 
the gay children of France, that it is hard 
for them to believe it is wrong. 

Not long afterward, to my great joy, I 
saw them in our congregation; and from 
this time they became frequent attendants 
of our Church; and I can now recall the 
tear lingering in her eye, and his warm 
expressions of pleasure derived from hearing 
the word of God. They did not read, they 
did not hear, in vain. They now told me 
that they had found the peace of God. 

" How good," said he to me one day, " is 
God ! He led me to this country, and here 
I have found him. In France I should never 
have turned to him. All my companions 



48 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

and relatives were worldly, and I knew 
nothing about him. When I think of the 
providence of God, I am astonished." 

They both joined our Church on probation, 
and in a few weeks, for some reasons con- 
nected with his family, they returned to 
France. This is six months ago. Perhaps 
I may never meet them here on earth again ; 
but I cherish the thought that in France they 
may be like the seed cast upon the waters, 
and that when our Saviour's redeemed chil- 
dren are made up, and the white-robed 
company stand before the throne, if I shall 
be permitted the glorious lot of standing an 
humble one among them, we shall again 
rejoice in the goodness which has carried 
us, as on eagles' wings, onward and upward, 

even to the paradise of God. 

# •& # # % 

Some time before I left Detroit Mr. and 
Mrs. Calzin returned from France, as they 
had expected to do, and continued worship- 
ing with us until I left. They parted with 
me in great sadness. 

" I fear we shall not be faithful," said he. 



THE SHEAVES COMING. 49 

" God can keep you, and you will have a 
good pastor in my place." 

" O, I fear we shall go back to the world 
again." 

My own heart was deeply touched. I 
never expected to see them again, and some- 
times, in those. last days which I spent in the 
Detroit French Mission, I almost regretted 
that I had ever consented to separate from 
the brethren there. They had battled their 
early superstitions ; they had stood the fire 
of persecution ; and amid these scenes had 
looked to me for guidance. But my better 
judgment conquered this feeling when I 
reflected that I was leaving with them one 
well qualified to lead them to green pastures 
and living waters. 



THE SHEAYES COMING. 

It has been truly said, " Cast thy bread 
upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after 
many days." 

I was passing the house of a French fam- 



50 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

ily one day, and though unacquainted with 
them, I entered and offered them a tract. I 
was surprised when I went in at the greet- 
ing I received. They seemed immediately 
to recognize me ; but instead of the cold- 
ness and occasional rudeness with which I 
was sometimes met in French Roman Cath- 
olic families, they exhibited the greatest 
kindness and cordiality of manner. I took 
a seat, and after conversing with them for a 
short time, promised to call again. This I 
did a number of times, and found them ap- 
parently much interested on religious sub- 
jects, and always glad to hear me explain 
to them the Bible, or point them to our Lord 
and Saviour. 

They seemed to be glad, and even grate- 
ful, when I prayed with them, and when I 
left, as if asking some favor, expressed the 
hope that I would call again soon. I was at 
a loss to know the reason of all this. It was 
not that I had overcome prejudice by my 
continued acquaintance with them, because 
they were the same ever since I first called. 

One day I found the father at home. He 



MAMMON VERSUS RELIGION. 51 

instantly recognized me, and held out his 
hand. He was the same Frenchman who 
had accompanied Jean Le Monde and his 
daughter, when we went to the priest's 
house, and had the conversation I have nar- 
rated in a previous sketch. 

He had said little on that occasion, but 
all he said showed him to be the advocate 
of Romanism. Now, however, he and all 
his family seemed leaning the other way. A 
Sabbath or two before I left, his daughter 
was in our Sunday-school, and I trust some 
of them are on the way that will lead them 
to the peace of God. 



MAMMON VERSUS RELIGION. 

Shall I reverse the picture, and instead of 
examples of encouragement which I have 
given, refer to some of an opposite character? 
An elderly man attended our Mission 
Church a few Sabbaths, and then called on 
one of our principal members, stating to him 
that he was poor, and intimating that he 



52 FKENCH MISSION LIFE. 

hoped either he or the Church would buy 
him a horse. What answer he received I 
do not know, but in a few days he called on 
me with the same request. I took occasion 
to converse with him on the state of his 
heart, and, though he listened while I talked, 
it was very manifest that he was more in- 
terested in the horse than he was in his soul. 
After I had told him I had no means to buy 
the horse, he suggested that I should com- 
mence a subscription for him ; and when he 
found he could gain nothing from us in a 
temporal point of view, he came no more, 
and I have never seen him since. 

Another, a stranger to me, called at my 
house one day, stating his desire to converse 
with me on the interests of his salvation. He 
appeared to be very sincere, and deeply in- 
terested in all I said. I thought he gave 
evidence, also, of great penitence, and said 
he was fully determined to lead a new life. 
I conversed with him perhaps an hour. 
"Surely," said I to myself, "this man is near 
the kingdom of heaven." I invited him to 
kneel with me in prayer, and while I prayed, 



MAMMON VERSUS RELIGION. 53 

his responses were frequent and audible, and 
exhibited the utmost earnestness. He had 
all the appearance of being weighed down 
under an oppressing load of sin, and groan- 
ing deeply for deliverance. Finally he rose 
to go. When he came to the outer door he 
lingered a moment, and, edging up close to 
me, said, " Could you lend me ten dollars?" 

I told him, in substance, that it was not 
convenient then. 

" How much could you lend me ?" inquired 
he, intimating, at the same time, that as he 
had shown such an interest in religion, he 
expected I would let him have the amount 
of money which such an act was worth. I 
then explained to him that we never gave 
money to those who sought the grace of God, 
and that if he supposed such was the prac- 
tice of our Church, he was laboring under 
an error. I thought Simon Magus was an 
honorable man compared with this person. 
He was willing to pay for the grace of God ; 
this man expected pay for counterfeiting it. 

These men were both French Canadian 
Roman Catholics. 



54 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 



DISAPPOINTED HOPES. 

One day I met with a young Belgian, 
brought up a Roman Catholic, who spoke 
French. He talked well and religiously, 
but was entirely without means, and was soon 
obliged to leave the city on that account. 
He remained about fourteen miles from 
Detroit, and wrote me such touching and 
religious letters that I was induced to make 
an effort to find him a situation. I succeed- 
ed, and engaged with a gentleman on his 
behalf that he should go to work with him 
at his trade, which was that of an uphol- 
sterer. I arranged for him to board with a 
religious family in the neighborhood of our 
Church, hoping that, as he was a young man 
of a good education, and apparently very 
serious, if not pious, he would be an assist- 
ance to us in our Sabbath school. After my 
arrangements were all ready, I sent a friend 
out with a horse and wagon to bring him in. 
This was Saturday. In the evening he call- 
ed to see me, and talked like a Christian ; 



DISAPPOINTED HOPES. 55 

and before he left remarked that he wished 
to come to church very much the next day, 
but he had pledged his clothes when he was 
in deep necessity, and he had none that were 
fit to wear on such an occasion. Two dollars 
would be enough to redeem them, and if I 
would lend him that sum it would be like 
crowning the obligations I had already con- 
ferred on him. I handed him the money. 

He did not get back to his boarding-house 
until six o'clock the next morning, as I after- 
ward learned. He had obtained the means, 
and had gone off on a drinking frolic. The 
next morning he was not at our service ; and 
as I did not yet know the reason, I began to 
wonder why. In the afternoon I ascertained 
by the good brother, to whose house I had 
recommended him, the fact I have stated. 

The young man kept up the same system 
until he was discharged by the employer I 
had found for him, and in about a couple of 
weeks he was forced to leave his boarding- 
house on account of his intemperate habits. 
He never once came to hear me preach, and 
I have never met with him since. 



56 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

A French Canadian woman joined with 
us on probation. She gave some evidence 
of a change of heart, and was very faithful 
in her attendance on the means of grace. In 
our prayer and class meetings she was earn- 
est and humble in her supplications and re- 
ligious experience. Once in a while, how- 
ever, she would branch off, seeming to for- 
get where she was, and pray to the Yirgin 
Mary. I asked her afterward if she prayed 
to the Yirgin when she was alone. 

" Not since I changed my religion," she 
replied. 

One evening she was earnestly engaged in 
supplicating the throne of grace, and, as our 
converts sometimes did in the early stages of 
their religious life, she began to relate her 
experience on her knees, saying that people 
called after her, and gave her opprobrious 
epithets for turning Protestant, but she could 
bear it patiently, when once she would have 
eaten them all up alive. 

A favorite term employed by those who 
were zealous for their religion was cochon. 
They applied it to those who renounced 



DISAPPOINTED HOPES. 57 

Romanism. I shall be excused for not trans- 
lating it. For some months she continued 
on, as if she meant to get to heaven. Then 
I observed that she was absent. I called at 
her house. After some little conversation 
she remarked, " I believe in your Church, 
but I cannot stand the persecution ; it is too 
much. I have gone back to the Church of 
Rome ; but I hope I shall not die in it." 

One Sabbath morning, while the cholera 
was raging among us, she started at about 
ten o'clock to go to the Roman Catholic 
church. On the way she complained that 
she did not feel well. When she arrived at 
the church she said to her husband that she 
was not able to go in and stay during the 
service, but she would go to the house of a 
relative, and remain there until he returned. 
She grew worse, and it soon became evident 
that she was seized with the cholera. The 
same day at about three o'clock she died. 
The only fact connected with her dying 
moments that I have learned is the follow- 
ing : A few moments before her death, her 
son, who had long lived with her, though a 



58 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

disobedient, wicked young man, approached 
her bed, and asked her forgiveness. 

" ]STo, I will not forgive you." 

" Mother, forgive me," he said, kneeling 
by her bed. 

" No, I will not forgive you." 

In about five minutes she died. 

Examples such as these are sometimes 
disheartening, discouraging to the Christian, 
but when we look around on those who 
stand firm in the grace of God, we rejoice, 
and hope on. 



AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION. 

We could hardly expect to meet with any 
success, and be free from persecution. We 
found this to be true in a sense we hardly 
expected, for we did not anticipate the scene 
of violence which actually occurred at one 
of our prayer-meetings. 

In a French neighborhood, where we had 
met evening after evening to pray, a French- 



AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION. 59 

man, the head of a family, had come out 
and joined our Church. This had much 
exasperated his neighbors. On Sunday even- 
ing I was proceeding with my wife to the 
house where we had appointed the meeting 
for that night, and as I drew near I observed 
little groups of men here and there talking. 
Almost as soon as we entered they gathered 
around the place, and with loud and con- 
tinued vociferation drowned our voices 
whenever we attempted to pray or sing. 
Soon they proceeded to other measures. 
The facts, however, were given by one of 
the Detroit daily papers at the time, in an 
article which is here inserted. I find one 
thing, however, there omitted of which. I 
was informed afterward, which is, that two 
of the crowd had actually gone up from the 
outside to the top of the house, to commence 
the fulfillment of their threat to pull down 
the house over us. The following is the 
article : 

" As many of our readers wish to know 
more of the attack which was made upon 
the French Protestants on the evening of 



60 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

January 17th, we give the following state- 
ment. 

"The week previously they had been 
holding prayer-meetings every night, and 
on the evening of Sabbath one had been 
appointed to be held at the house of a 
Frenchman, in Pine* street, near Eiopelle, 
who had lately united with their Church. 
At about the time the prayer-meeting com- 
menced a mob of from thirty to fifty French 
persons gathered in front, and at the end of 
the house, shouting and making a noise. 
They then came up to the windows, and 
through a broken pane threw in snow upon 
the persons engaged in prayer, and shouted 
through the opening in loud oaths and obscen- 
ity, calling for Mr. , charging him with 

having changed his religion, and saying that 
if he would come out they would kill him 
and go away. About this time a gentleman 
and lady coming to the meeting were stop- 
ped ; the lady was taken hold of at the door, 
and told not to go in there, for they were 
going to pull the house down. The noise 
outside had now become so loud, it was 



AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION. 61 

almost impossible to pray vocally inside — 
the voice was drowned by blasphemy and 
imprecations. It was as if a pack of raven- 
ous wolves had surrounded the house. All 
at once those who had been engaged in 
prayer were started to their feet by a crash 
as if one of the windows of the adjoining 
room had been broken in. It was a club of 
wood thrown by those outside, breaking the 
sash and two or three panes, but which, prov- 
identially, did not strike any person. There 
was now a momentary calm, and it was 
hoped that they would leave. But a moment 
or two, however, only passed before they 
again rallied round the house. The noise 
commenced anew, when just at this point 
Alderman Smith, who had been sent for, 
arrived, with some men, and with a prompt- 
ness and decision which deserve much 
praise, arrested two or three on the spot. 
The others then dispersed. In the meantime, 
the wife of the man residing in the house, 
being a feeble woman, was taken suddenly 
ill, from the effects of fright; a physician 
was sent for, and it was feared for some time 



62 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

that her condition was dangerous. She is 
now, however, better. The next day a war- 
rant was issued against six persons supposed 
to have taken an active part in the proceed- 
ings. Four were taken, and put upon trial 
before P. Higgins, Esq., police magistrate. 
After a jury had been impanneled, and the 
trial commenced, and a number of witnesses 
examined, the accused parties, through their 
counsel, proposed to give bail for their future 
good behavior, and to pay the costs. The 
parties who had suffered were consulted, 
and one sentiment seemed to be the response 
of every heart: 'We are glad to forgive; 
we love to forgive ;' and the defendants 
were discharged. 

"Much is due to the prosecuting attorney, 
Mr. M'Eeynolds, for the ability with which 
he advocated the question during the trial, 
that every man has a right to worship God 
according to the dictates of his own con- 
science, without being put in jeopardy of 
his life and person in the exercise of that 
right. May the time never come in our own 
free America when one man shall be per- 



ROMANIST SCHOOLS — THEIR EFFECTS. 63 

mitted to use violence toward another for 
his religious belief. "We will add here the 

reply w T hich Mr. makes to the charge 

before referred to, of having changed his 
religion. He says he never had any religion 
while he was a member of the Church in 
which he was brought up, and therefore 
could not have changed it ; but that his relig- 
ion now is to love God with all his heart, 
and his neighbor as himself, and to trust in 
the death and merits of Christ alone for the 
pardon of his sins, and to be saved from 
hell, forsaking every other mediator and 
every other foundation, and leaning only on 
Jesus Christ as the rock against which the 
gates of hell will never prevail." 



ROMANIST SCHOOLS-AN ILLUSTRATION OF 
THEIR EFFECTS. 

The following facts occurred just as I have 
related them, with the exception only, that, 
for the sake of her relations, I have inserted 
" Emily H " instead of her real name. 



64 FKENCH MISSION LIFE. 

When I first went to Detroit, Emily 
H was a fair young girl, of about four- 
teen years of age. Her parents were both 
Americans ; her father strongly Protestant 
in sentiment, though not a member of any 
Church, while her mother was a member of 
one of the Evangelical Churches of the city, 
an excellent lady, and I doubt not a true 
Christian. They were a most amiable family, 
in easy circumstances, and surrounded by 
kind friends who esteemed and loved 
them. 

Owing either to the terms on which I 
stood with her friends, or to the great inter- 
est which she took in the French language, 
I soon became well acquainted with her. 
She had studied French, had a very fine 
pronunciation, and seemed anxious to avail 
herself of every opportunity to practice in 
conversation what she had acquired. For 
this purpose she became introduced to two 
or three persons who attended our Church, 
and by their means promoted the object she 
had in view. There was another way, how- 
ever, in which she was perfecting her 



ROMANIST SCHOOLS THEIR EFFECTS. 65 

French of which I was then ignorant, and 
to which I shall presently advert. 

It is proper, however, for me first to state, 
that that young girl possessed an intelligence, 
beauty, and attraction of manner which are 
seldom surpassed ; and as she grew in years 
these ripened and expanded under the 
moulding influence of a liberal education. 

Some time before I arrived in Detroit, 
how long I know not, she had attended for 
six months the Eoman Catholic school of 
the " Sisters of the Sacred Heart." 

It was but a short time, and no one 
dreamed that any effect would result delete- 
rious to her principles. Besides, she was 
then very young, and if aught had occurred 
prejudicial to her more early training, surely 
time and subsequent impressions would very 
soon efface it. But she took pains to assure 
me there was no danger of this; for I one 
day inquired of her : 

"Did the Sisters make no effort to lead 
you toward Romanism ?" 

" O no," said she ; " they never do." 

" Ah, are you sure 2" 
5 



66 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

"Yes; for they do not speak of the views 
of Protestants, and do not even allow any- 
religious conversation among the pupils." 

I had been in Detroit about four years, 
when she took a class in our Sabbath school 
for the purpose of instructing some French 
children, and for a while seemed interested 
in this work. But soon, either from the 
distance she lived from our church, or that 
her heart was not in it, (the latter, as it 
afterward turned out,) she became fre- 
quently absent, and then gave it up. 

Some months after this, a young lady 
who was acquainted with her inquired of me : 

" Have you heard about Miss H ?" 

"No." ' 

" She has made arrangements to join the 
Koman Catholic Church." 

I was startled — surprised. I had never 
suspected that she had even thought of it. 
Was it possible that she was going to give 
that Church the benefit of her intelligence, 
her education — all the attractions of her 
person and mind? These thoughts passed 
before me as I hurriedly inquired : 



ROMANIST SCHOOLS THEIK EFFECTS. 67 

« When ?" 

" She is to be baptized this week." 

Her friends expostulated — her mother 
pleaded ; but all to no purpose. She was 
fixed as the rock on which the ocean breaks 
its foam-crowned billows. 

Before I saw her again, Emily H was 

a member of the Church of Borne, and 
residing with a family belonging to that 
communion. 

And it occurred in this way. While she* 
attended the school of the " Sisters of the 
Sacred Heart," during those six months, 
they took pains not to arouse her religious 
feelings by any reference to the differences 
between Protestantism and Romanism. They 
forbade religious conversation between the 
pupils, because Protestant children, young 
as they were, might have told the children 
of Roman Catholic parents things which the 
Sisters would not have desired young and 
loyal Romanists to hear. But while they 
avoided everything that could arouse Emily's 
suspicions, they exercised all that courteous- 
ness and politeness for which the French are 



68 FRENCH MISSTON LIFE. 

proverbial, and French nuns no less so than 
others, in gaining to themselves her young 
and innocent heart. For this purpose I 
doubt not they told her of all the refine- 
ments of their country, of the gorgeous 
churches, of the swelling music of their 
choirs, of the dim arches, the ornaments, 
the number of the priests, their robes, their 
gentle tones in the confessional; and when 
there was any danger of coming too near 
those yet cherished doctrines which her 
mother had taught her, they branched off, 
and expatiated on the beauties of the French 
language. Six months were enough to win 
her heart ; and when her father brought her 
home their work was more than half done. 

Attracted by their society, again and 
again she called at the school to visit them. 
Again and again they urged her not to for- 
get her French, but to come and practice it 
with them occasionally ; and here was the 
secret of her attachment to the French lan- 
guage, and here was the way, to which I 
have referred, in which she was perfecting 
her knowledge of it, during all those years 



ROMANIST SCHOOLS — THEIR EFFECTS. 69 

when the impressions received in six months 
were silently ripening to their harvest. 

Shortly after her baptism I had a long 
conversation with her excellent mother, from 
whom I learned some of the facts I have 
stated. I shall never forget the bitter sorrow 
and tears with which she spoke of it. She 
had made every effort to turn her from her 
resolution, but had only succeeded in pre- 
vailing upon her to delay a single week. At 
the end of that week she was received into 
the bosom of the papal Church at the 
Cathedral in Jefferson Avenue. 

When I left Detroit Emily H was in 

the nunnery recently erected in the upper 
part of the city. Whether she intended to 
enter it as a novice I did not learn ; but I 
have related sufficient to show the extreme 
peril of sending a child to the Sisters' schools, 
or to any school under Romanist influence. 
They may acquire the French language, 
they may acquire French accomplishments 
and French politeness, but these will be 
dearly bought if for them we barter our 
children away to the nunnery and Rome. 



70 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 



A PRIESTS TESTIMONY AS TO ROMANIST 
VOTES AND ROMANIST SCHOOLS. 

A gentleman came to the door one day 
asking for me, who, on being shown in, re- 
marked that he had called on me for the 
purpose of conversing on the subject of re- 
ligion. 

I asked him to take a seat, and he con- 
tinued by saying that he was a priest of the 
Roman Catholic Church, and that he felt a 
burden on his heart, which had induced him 
to come and see me. He then produced 
to me certificates of his standing in that 
Church, one from the Archbishop of Paris, 
France; another from the civil authorities 
of that city, showing his faithfulness in min- 
istering to the wants of the sick as a clergy- 
man ; and another dated only a few months 
back, from a college in this country, where he 
had been one year a professor. He had been 
in this country about eighteen months. He 
was stopping at the present time with the 
Roman Catholic bishop of Detroit, but 



ROMANIST VOTES AND SCHOOLS. 71 

wished to find a spiritual rest, which he be- 
lieved he ought to possess, that he had never 
been able to obtain in the Church of Home. 
He was a man of about forty or forty-five 
years of age, of an intelligence rather superior, 
I should judge from those I have met with, 
to that of the Roman Catholic priests gen- 
erally. He had read the New Testament 
much, for very frequently he would quote 
passages from it, often repeating in Latin 
what he had said in French. 

After a conversation of some length, we 
knelt down together, and I prayed with him. 
Again he called in a few days, and after 
about a week commenced attending regu- 
larly our services, stating to me then that he 
had left the bishop's house, as he did not 
wish to linger undecided ; that as his sen- 
timents then were, he did not suppose it 
would be honorable for him longer to enjoy 
the hospitalities of the bishop, and he had 
thought it his duty to tell him plainly the 
condition of his mind ; which he had done, 
and thereupon removed to a Protestant 
boarding-house. 



72 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

I now saw him frequently, and he began 
to pray himself when I prayed with him, in 
words which seemed to be the natural out- 
gushing of a burdened heart. 

Soon afterward, at a communion season, 
he came forward, and joined our Church on 
probation. One day I said to him, 

"Do you think you have yet found the 
peace and pardon which you sought ?" 

"I have not yet that clear trust in the 
Saviour which I ought to have. It is be- 
cause I have grown old in sinning. My 
heart is hard and wicked. But while I know 
that my sins are grievous and many, I have 
a great confidence in the merits of Christ." 

His experience in our love-feasts and class- 
meetings always interested me. 

On one occasion, at my request, he pre- 
pared an article on the political influence of 
Romanism, which is now before me as he 
originally wrote it. I will translate some 
passages, which I have no doubt will be in- 
teresting to many, coming as they do from 
one who has been so lately a Roman Catho- 
lic priest. 



ROMANIST VOTES AND SCHOOLS. 73 

The title of the article is as follows : 

"On the fatal Influence of the Eomish 
Church, in the Executive and Political Affairs 
of the United States." 

After a short introduction, he goes on to 
remark : 

" The Eomish Church is organized like a 
powerful army. The pope is the commander- 
in-chief. The bishops are his generals of 
division, commanding each one a separate 
diocese, and the priests are the officers, gov- 
erning each one a parish, under the imme- 
diate direction of the bishops. A despotic 
authority forms the essence and the nature 
of this hierarchy. This authority goes out 
from the pope, passes through the bishops 
and priests, and is exercised uppn the laity, 
who are held to a passive obedience, as the 
Russian soldiers are forced to obey blindly, 
and without reasoning, the Autocrat of the 
North. 

" Toward the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, a body of auxiliary troops ranged itself 
under the standard of the pope. They are 
sent to all parts of the world as missionaries 



n 



FKENCH MISSION LIFE. 



to fight in the name of the pope. I refer to 
the Jesuits. 

"The popes lay the foundation of their 
right to the administration, or at least to the 
inspection of temporal things, upon the 
words of Christ, saying of himself, 'All 
power is given to me in heaver, and on 
earth.' 

"Now the popes claim to be the repre- 
sentatives of Christ, and to have the same 
right and the same power that he has. It 
is true, we do not see in history that the first 
bishops of Rome arrogated to themselves 
this power. It is not until later, when the 
JRomish Church became corrupted, and above 
all in the Middle Ages, under favor of the 
ignorance and fanaticism which reigned 
during those periods of darkness, that the 
popes have thrown forth their thunderbolts 
against temporal sovereigns, have excom- 
municated and dethroned kings and em- 
perors, and have weighed down the whole 
of Christianity with their arrogant despot- 
ism. 

" Thus in A. D. 730, Gregory II. excom- 



ROMANIST VOTES AND SCHOOLS. 75 

municates and deposes the Emperor Leo 
Honorius, and releases his subjects from 
their oath of fidelity. In 1 073, Gregory TIL 
deposes Henry IY. of Germany. In 1099, 
Paschal II. deposes also Henry IV. In 
1212, Innocent HI. deposes the Emperor 
Otho IY., stating that his pontifical authority 
excels the royal authority, as much as the 
sun excels the moon. In 1239, Gregory IX. 
excommunicates the Emperor Frederic II. 
In 1535 and 1538, Paul III. excommuni- 
cates, deposes, and curses Henry VIIL, 
King of England, &c, &c. 

"It is true that now, in the old world, the 
power of * the pope is feared by no sovereign, 
and the thunders of the Yatican are gener- 
ally considered in Europe as air bubbles 
which injure no one. 

" The Protestant Reformation of the six- 
teenth century gave a mortal blow to the 
absolute power of the popes. 

" But a fundamental point with the Church 
of Pome is its infallibility. It cannot change. 
Its rights are always the same. What, then, 
has it done now ? Seeing that it has lost its 



76 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

power in Europe, it has crossed the seas, and 
is now in America, profiting by the liberty 
allowed to it through our constitution, and 
making every effort to establish its dominion 
here. 

"The first field of battle is in our elections. 
They are registered by their chiefs, and they 
vote as one man. In the confessional the 
work is done. Each priest indicates the per- 
son for whom they ought to vote, and they 
believe themselves bound to obey the priests 
as the representatives of God. 

" Romanism then secondly endeavors to 
corrupt the public spirit by its teaching. 
America is being covered more and more 
with colleges and academies directed by 
the Jesuits. The Jesuits are everywhere. 
They direct the grand seminary of the Arch- 
bishop of New- York, situated at Fordham. 
In the same locality, there exists also an 
academy directed by the Jesuits, and which 
contains not less than two hundred boarders. 
The Jesuits have a large college in the city 
of JSTew-York. They are also at the head of 
the college of St. Xavier, near Cincinnati. 



ROMANIST VOTES AND SCHOOLS. 77 

They direct also the college of Bardstown, 
near Louisville. They have in Kentucky, 
the college of St. Aloysius. At St. Louis, 
they have a numerous college, and near St. 
Louis a novitiate house filled with Jesuits. 
"Near Mobile, they have Spring Hill College, 
under the name of St. Joseph. At ISTew- 
Orleans, they have the school of Jesus. In 
fine, Jesuitism is spread everywhere in Amer- 
ica like a cancer. We might mention many 
other establishments of men and women, 
where they corrupt the American youth by 
their Satanic doctrines.* 

" These dangerous priests can no longer 

Q The reader will observe that the Romanist establish- 
ments enumerated here are only a few of those which ac- 
tually exist, 

In Detroit alone, besides one nunnery, there are Ro- 
manist schools of all kinds, so many and so large that I 
have always shuddered for our children, when I have 
seen the very large processions, two by two, which they 
would pour forth. 

In Manhattanville, by the ground they occupy with 
their nunnery, church, and schools, they seem to have 
taken formal possession of that part of the city. 

And besides these institutions, open advocates of Rome, 
how many private schools there are kept by accomplished 
French people where Protestantism is secretly under- 
mined! 



78 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

hold schools in many of the states of Europe, 
and it is deplorable that they are permitted 
in America. And what is worse, many 
Protestant families confide to them their 
children to instruct. 

" O, American people, guard against these 
two evils : the votes, and the teaching of 
Romanism. Amend your constitution, so as 
to diminish their power in your elections, and 
pass such laws in reference to the instruction 
of youth, as will check or hinder, or take 
away from your midst, schools taught by the 
sworn and confessed enemies of your insti- 
tutions. You are masters now. You are 
sovereign now. You have the right and 
power now to act for the safety of your coun- 
try. Remember the oft-repeated warning 
of the immortal Lafayette, the faithful friend 
of Washington and of America : 'The Ameri- 
can liberty can never be destroyed, except 
by the Romish clergy.' That power which 
every day, and by every means, corrupts 
our morals, destroys our institutions, de- 
spises our laws and our religion, poisons our 
youth, leads astray our population, until it 



EOMANIST VOTES AND SCHOOLS. 79 

can openly encourage insurrections and civil 
wars, and establish its insolent dominion in 
our divided, enfeebled, and ruined country." 

I have translated and extracted more than 
I intended, but these sentiments are certainly 
worth the attention of every reader. 

I inquired of him one clay as to the celi- 
bacy of the priesthood. His reply surprised 
me: - 

" Many of the priests enter orders with 
pure motives. But when their association 
commences with older priests, they become 
changed, and you will find only one in a 
thousand faithful to his obligations." 

Months wore away. He became an in- 
mate of the family of Rev. A. D. Wilbor, 
pastor of the first Methodist Episcopal 
Church of Detroit, as tutor, where, I doubt 
not, he learned lessons of Christian experience 
which he will ever remember, and at last 
circumstances led him away from Detroit. 
I was not in the city when he left. He 
came to see me, and I regretted that I was 
absent. But I look back now upon that 
penitent priest of Rome with great affection. 



80 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

I see on my table before me the little Latin 
work"De Imitatione Christi," which he pre- 
sented me as a token of his love, and though 
in some things I could not help doubting 
whether he was yet truly converted or not, 
yet, in other matters, he gave at least evi- 
dence of a sincere desire to arrive at the 
truth. 

I have found, however, especially among 
Romanists, that it is often some time before 
the harvest comes ; that the seed will not 
grow up and ripen until after many days. 
I am trusting that in those few months some 
good seed was sown, which God will watch 
over and bring to maturity, and if that dear 
brother should ever read these pages, let 
him remember that there is one still praying 
for him, who hopes to meet him where the 
battle shall be ended, and where this weary 
conflict shall be over. 



THE SINCERE ROMANIST. 81 



THE SINCERE R0MAHST. 

Isabel, the daughter of a very intelligent 
French widow lady, is the subject of my 
present sketch. Her mother had renounced 
Romanism and joined one of the English 
Churches previous to the commencement of 
our French mission, and when our society 
was organized became one of its members. 
Isabel, however, had no sympathy for her 
mother's belief. Strongly attached to the 
Church of her childhood, the Church of her 
fathers, she firmly advocated its doctrines, 
and attended strictly its services. 

To such an extent did she carry this prin- 
ciple, that she feared she was doing wrong 
in residing with her mother. 

" Mother," said she one day, " I am 
obliged to leave you." 

" Why, Isabel ?" 

" I dare not remain with you." 

"Isabel!" 

"You know, mother, how you once re- 
garded Protestants, how yau. looked upon 



82 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

them as heretics. You yourself would not 
have lived with them, and how can I ?" 

" But where will you go ?" 

"I know not, but they tell me, when I 
confess, that my soul is in danger. I must 
go, mother ; I dare not stay." 

" But, Isabel, your mother loves you ; it 
is hard to see you leave me thus." 

" And I love you, mother, too ; it is hard 
for me ; but O ! to lose my soul will be 
harder yet. I cannot, cannot stay." 

"You must not go, Isabel; I cannot see 
you go, for your own sake as well as mine." 

" O, mother, my heart is breaking ; what 
can I do ?" 

She went away, and for sixteen long 
months returned not, and hardly exchanged 
words with her natural protector. 

One day during that time her mother ob- 
served her, poorly clad, passing her house. 
Impelled by a mother's feelings, she hastened 
to speak to her ; but no persuasions could in- 
duce her to enter the house. She urged her 
to accept some clothing, which, after much 
hesitation, she received, and continued her 



THE SINCERE ROMANIST. 83 

way, leaving her widowed parent to feelings 
which were aggravated by the fact that Isa- 
bel was her only daughter. At length, at 
the end of the time I have mentioned, she 
returned like the prodigal to her home. 

Not long after this I arrived at Detroit, 
(now about four years ago,) and commenced 
the mission. Calling at their house, I met 
with Isabel, but knew not at the time her 
deep-seated opposition to the Protestant 
faith. With the permission of her mother J 
appointed a prayer-meeting, to be held at her 
residence on an evening not far distant. 
When the evening arrived I went to the 
place, and found that Isabel had again for- 
saken her home, and had gone no one knew 
whither. How much I wished to see her ! 
It seemed to me as if I could by a few words 
show her the error she was laboring under. 
It was some time, however, before it could 
be ascertained where she was. 

At last we learned she had gone to an 
uncle's house who resided in Detroit. I 
called on her there. She received me 
kindly and politely. I remarked : 



84 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

" Your mother has no wish to force upon 
you her doctrines. 55 

" I know she would not do so." 

" She is grieved at your absence." 

"I am sorry to be away from her, but I 
must place religion above all things else." 

"But your mother prays; we pray; we 
are trying to save our souls, and serve God." 

" I know it." 

" Why, then, do you fear us V J 

" I will tell you frankly. I believe in the 
Roman Catholic Church as the only one true 
Church, and I dare not participate in the 
worship of another." 

" And will you not return to your mother's 
house?" 

"I dare not." 

Another year passed, at the end of which 
time Isabel concluded again to take up her 
abode with her mother. I now frequently 
saw her. There was much in her character 
that interested me. She seemed to be earn- 
estly endeavoring to serve God as far as she 
knew how ; was remarkably conscientious; 
and, while her personal attractions were 



THE SINCERE ROMANIST. 85 

amply sufficient to draw to her both atten- 
tion and admiration, her heart appeared to 
have no taste for their allurements. That 
great question, " How shall I find my way to 
heaven?" with her absorbed, controlled 
every other. Even when she abandoned her 
mother's house, she believed it to be in obe- 
dience to the command requiring her to for- 
sake father, mother, and all that we have for 
Christ's sake. 

I respected her, and though I spoke fre- 
quently to her of our Saviour, and of being 
born anew by the Spirit of God, I said little 
to her by way of controversy. Her spirit 
was so humble, so delicate, that controversy 
seemed out of place ; and though her senti- 
ments differed so widely from my own, I 
felt convinced that God's Spirit was moving 
on her heart, and all I hoped was that he 
would lead her to see, and know, and do what 
was his will. 



86 FitENCH MISSION LIFE. 



ISABEL. 

It now became evident to me that a change 
was going on in the mind of Isabel. "When 
I met with her, she was willing to talk of re- 
ligion. When I prayed with her mother, 
she was willing to be present. Now she 
was ready to admit that her mother might 
be a Christian, if she conscientiously be- 
lieved the Protestant religion to be right; 
but as for her, no place but the Roman 
Catholic Church was a place of safety. 
This certainly was not the same spirit which 
actuated her when she left her mother's 
house, and when she fled from the prayer- 
meeting. On the contrary, her repugnance 
to a prayer-meeting had entirely vanished. 
I began to observe also that occasionally she 
was in our congregation with her mother, 
though on Sabbath mornings she was always 
careful to attend her own Church. They 
would leave home together; they would 
come to within a few houses of our church, 
and then, while her mother entered, she 



ISABEL. 87 

would go on alone to the Roman Catholic 
mass. 

At length she began regularly to attend 
our Sabbath school in the afternoon, and 
here, perhaps, I observed the most decided 
change in her. Next I saw that she was 
frequently present at our morning services. 
On one occasion I called at her house, and 
had something like the following conversa- 
tion with her : 

"Do you think your heart is changed, 
Isabel, from what it once was ?" 

" O, yes ; ever since last January I have 
felt differently." 

" Do you believe God has converted you ?" 
" Tes, I am not what I was once." 
" And you believe he has forgiven your 
sins ?" 

" It seems so to me." 
" And death, does it seem dark ?" 
" O no, I am not afraid to die." 
She now attended our class-meetings, and 
her testimony was clear that she had found 
the peace of God. Her life also gave evi- 
dence of the veracity of this profession. 



88 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

About this time I called one day at her 
mother's house. I did not yet know whether 
Isabel's feelings had entirely changed or not 
in reference to her attachment to Romanism. 
I thought perhaps she still attended some- 
times the mass, and retained some slight at- 
tachment to that Church. Isabel happened 
to be absent, and, to my surprise, her mother 
remarked that Isabel had not attended the 
Roman Catholic Church for some time ; that 
she herself had proposed accompanying her 
on one occasion, but she replied she did not 
wish to return there. 

I found here an illustration of a great prin- 
ciple. When the heart is truly converted hy 
the power of the Holy Ghost, attachment to 
Romanism naturally drops off, like dead 
leaves in the forest 

A few weeks ago her mother proposed 
holding a prayer-meeting at her house. 
Isabel was present, and both prayed and 
spoke. 

Last Sabbath was our quarterly-meeting. 
When the usual invitation was given, Isabel 
came forward, and joined our Church on 



ISABEL. 89 

probation. May God grant her grace to be 
steadfast until she joins the Church of the 
first-born in heaven. 

And I will add a few words for those of 
my readers who may have become interested 
in the history of Isabel. I think I have 
never known in any one a more complete 
forsaking of the world than is exhibited in 
her. In one so young, in one who might 
draw to herself the attentions which are so 
usually valued by the young, it is exceed- 
ingly attractive. Before ever I read to her 
our rules in reference to dress, and ornaments 
of gold, &c, her heart seemed instinctively 
to understand them all. She is a living 
illustration of their beauty. The only orna- 
ment she seems to seek is that of a meek and 
quiet spirit, and a resemblance to Christ. 

Isabel and her mother were among the last 
persons with us as we left Detroit. 

They lingered hour after hour of our last 
day, as if anxious to be with us as much as 
they could. 

Ever since the conversion of Isabel, they 



90 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

had been much attached to us, and if their 
love to us was any test of their religious ex- 
perience, with them it was a most unequivo- 
cal one. 

May God bless and keep them. 



MATHILDE. 



Mathilde A. was a little child of about ten 
or eleven years of age, when we first com- 
menced our French Sabbath school in the 
Second Methodist Episcopal Church in De- 
troit. Her mother had been brought up a 
Romanist, but cared little for any Church, 
and never attended any as far as I know, and 
though French, she spoke English almost as 
well as her native tongue. 

For a year, perhaps, Mathilde attended our 
Sabbath school, and then I observed she was 
absent, and for perhaps another year I lost 
sight of her. 

Soon after we opened our new church, I 
observed her there, and she came now again 



MATHILDE. 91 

regularly to the school. As she grew older, 
she seemed to take more and more interest 
in anything that pertained to the Bible and 
God, and after some time was admitted into 
our Bible-class. Here I could not help no- 
ticing the pleasure she felt in everything that 
related to religion. I called at her house one 
day, and her mother pointed me to a large, 
elegantly bound Bible, saying that Mathilde 
had persuaded her to purchase it for her. 
" And she reads to me out of it," said she, 
"for I cannot read." I was surprised to 
learn this fact, for her mother was a fine- 
looking, intelligent-appearing woman. 

When we wished to obtain subscribers for 
the Sunday School Advocate, or anything 
was to be done for the school, Mathilde was 
always one of the first to give her name. 
And thus she went on until she grew up to 
be an extremely interesting young woman. 
She seemed to drink into her very soul the 
religious principles of God's word, and they 
shone upon her countenance, and gave grace 
and attraction to her manner. She now 
came forward almost voluntarily, and sought 



92 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

the peace which Christ promised, and not 
only sought, but found, and soon afterward 
joined our Church on probation. Her 
mother ere long followed her. The latter 
came forward shortly before I came away, 
and when I left they were both probationers 
in the society. 

Catharine B. was another of our Sabbath- 
school children who grew up thus, loving the 
Scriptures, and sought the Saviour after she 
became a member of our Bible-class. 

They are both French, and both bid fair 
to be useful Christians. 



ARE YOU FAITHFUL TO YOUR CLASS-MEET- 
INGS? 

Brother G., one of the stewards of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church in , of the ISTew- 

York Conference, had not attended class- 
meeting for a long time. He had had some 
misunderstanding with one of his brethren, 
and said he would not attend. After I came 
on to the charge I observed his absence, and 



ARE YOU FAITHFUL TO CLASS-MEETINGS? 93 

after some few weeks called on him, and 
mentioned tlie subject. He stated frankly 
the fact I have given, said it was not pleas- 
ant for him to go, and he was not willing to 
do so. I expostulated with him, endeavoring 
to put the question on the foundation of 
duty, and to urge him to be present, because 
it was right. I could do nothing with him. 
After trying thus until I found my efforts 
were fruitless, I said to him, 

" Well, Brother G., what can I do ? if I 
leave matters as they are, I shall be guilty 
of a neglect of duty. If you will not attend, 
I must appoint a committee to decide on the 
question, or else I shall bring condemnation 
on my own heart." 

" I am willing you should do so." 

" I cannot help it, if I am faithful to God 
and the Church ; but at the same time I do 
not want to lose you." 

I appointed a committee of three, but be- 
fore the time of their meeting, my excellent 
presiding elder, Brother M., came to the vil- 
lage, and I engaged him to go with me, and 
try if two could not do more than one. 



94 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

He received us very kindly, and we both 
stayed until a late hour of the night in conver- 
sation with him, and with his lady, Sister G. 

It seemed for a long time of no use. He 
was very firm in his determination, but yet 
wished to remain a member of the Church 
he loved. There seemed to be no alternative, 
except going on with the matter before the 
committee. I have often thought of, and ad- 
mired since, the manner in which my pre- 
siding elder talked with him. There was 
everything that was mild and kind in his 
voice, and yet he was decided and earnest. 
I was then young in the ministry, and I have 
often proposed to myself his manner with 
Brother G. as a model for imitation. 

Thank God, he won him back from the 
error of his way. He yielded at last so as 
to promise that he would attend one class- 
meeting, with an intimation that perhaps he 
would continue to be present at subsequent 
ones. 

The next meeting he was there, and 
Sister G. was with him ; and the next, and 
the next; and I do not remember that he 



ARE YOU FAITHFUL TO CLASS-MEETINGS? 95" 

or his wife was ever absent while I continued 
in the Church. There were few or no mem- 
bers of the society, who were as faithful to 
the class-meeting as they were. And often 
at the prayer-meeting, my own heart has 
been deeply touched as I have listened to his 
humble supplications for more grace. 

I had been some time in another appoint- 
ment, when I heard that Brother G-. was 
dead. He knows well now that the course 
we urged him to adopt was a wise one. He 
sees now all the blessedness of the promise, 
" Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give 
thee a crown of life." 

If you, dear brother or sister, you who are 
reading this sketch, could realize that death 
is as near to you as it was to Brother G., 
would you not be more faithful to your class- 
meeting % 



96 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 



THE HUMILITY OF BISHOP HEDDING* 

I love Methodist preachers for one thing : 
they have so little ministerial pride about 
them. We have our faults. We need more 
earnestness in prayer, more power in preach- 
ing, more faithfulness in visiting regularly 
our people, and in bringing to them the 
books and other publications of our Church ; 
but I love my brethren for their warm, open 
hearts. There are some exceptions, it is true, 
but I hardly ever find among them any chill- 
ing assumption of official dignity. 

Bishop Hedding was remarkable for the 
absence of this. I had the privilege of spend- 
ing two days at his house on one occasion, 
when I enjoyed the hospitalities of himself 
and his excellent lady. 

As it came on toward evening, he asked 
me to let him have my boots. I asked him 
why, what he wanted to do with them. He 
replied he wished to blacken them for me. 

w This incident in reference to Bishop Hedding has 
never before been published, that I know of. 



A JUDGMENT OF GOD. 97 

[ was astonished at his request, and said to 
him that I would not allow him to do so. 
He insisted, 'and would not be denied, until 
I went out with him to his wood-house, and 
there I could find no means of escaping from 
his determination to perform this humble 
office for me, except by doing it myself, 
which I did. 



A JUDGMENT OF GOD. 

I attended the funeral of a gentleman, whose 
death occurred under the following circum- 
stances : 

He was visiting at the house of his brother- 
in-law, who was a devoted Christian. Dur- 
ing the course of the evening, the latter ad- 
dressed to his guest, Mr. William P., the gen- 
tleman to whom I refer, some words upon 
the subject of his religious state. He ad- 
mitted readily that he was destitute of 
piety, but received kindly the suggestions 
offered. 

" I hope, William, that you will soon give 
1 



98 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

your heart and life to Christ, and trust in 
him." 

"I know I ought to do so. I have again 
and again half resolved to be a Christie, 
and yet I put it off." 

"It is extremely dangerous to do so. 
Every day it is becoming more and more 
difficult for you to submit to God." 

" I know it is. My heart is harder now 
than it was years ago. And I am more in- 
clined to unbelief, and to doubt the Bible. 
And yet I know its truth. I feel its realities 
when I sit down to talk or think seriously as 
we do now." 

"Why, then, will you not decide?" 

" I mean to soon." 

" Do so at once, to-night." 

" Not now." 

" But while you wait, consider your heart 
grows harder, as you admit. But not only 
this, but your sins, accumulating day after 
day, separate you further from God. And 
what is perhaps still more solemn, you know 
not when the Holy Spirit of God will leave 
you to hardness and impenitence of heart." 



A JUDGMENT OF GOD. 99 

"I have thought of all this, and yet I 
linger." 

"But why?" 

" I know not, but I will soon attend to it ; 
I have decided that." 

"Now is the accepted time. This night 
is the time, William, at which God calls 
upon you to yield to him." 

They thus conversed for hours, and until 
the night was far advanced, one urging, the 
other hesitating, and sometimes seeming on 
the point of yielding, until Mr. P. expressed 
himself as follows : 

"If my wife will become a Christian, I 
give you my promise that I will yield my- 
self to God a week after she does." 

From this resolution he would not turn, 
and it was with a sad heart that the other 
left him, and retired for the night. 

In the morning they both rose as usual. 
Mr. P. stepped out a moment before break- 
fast, was taken suddenly ill, was brought in 
dying, and in a few moments was dead. 

As I looked upon his body in the coffin 
the same afternoon, I could not but think of 



100 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

the resolution he had made the previous 
evening. 



HOW SISTER LE BLANC WAS CONVERTED. 

At the Michigan Annual Conference, held 
in Flint, and which closed its session Sep- 
tember 11, 1855, 1 stopped at the house of a 
kind and excellent brother, whose hospitality 
and Christian courtesy I shall not soon for- 
get. The evening of the day on which the 
conference closed I was seated on the front 
stoop, when he remarked, as an old man 
passed, "There is Brother White." He 
called to him, and, after he had entered the 
gate, I was introduced to a venerable man 
over seventy years of age, whose real name 
was Le Blanc, which signifies in English 
"the white," and he therefore received 
among Americans part of the English trans- 
lation, and was called simply Mr. "White. 

He had been a Eoman Catholic, but many 
years ago had renounced the communion of 
that Church, and was now a Methodist. He 



HOW SISTER LE BLANC WAS CONVERTED. 101 

invited me to call on hiin at his house, and 
he and his family being French, it created 
in me an interest which led me during the 
course of the evening to walk over to his res- 
idence. There I found his aged wife, Sister 
Le Blanc, his son, daughter, and daughter's 
husband, with a brother from Lake Superior 
and his lady, whom they were entertaining 
during the session of the Conference. 

Sister Le Blanc was seventy years of age, 
and from herself I learned the story of her 
conversion. She was a Roman Catholic 
until she was thirty-five years old ; she then 
resided near Lake Champlain, and in the 
neighborhood of a good brother, who talked 
to her about religion, enough, as she ex- 
pressed it, " to convert a nation." One 
evening a neighbor woman, an American, 
came to invite her to a prayer-meeting. 
She did not pass her by, as many Ameri- 
cans do, because she was a Roman Catholic. 

" O, I cannot go ! I have no dress," she re- 
marked. 

" Well, then, I will lend you one of mine," 
said the other. 



102 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

" Kb, I won't take yours ; I will go with 
my linsey-woolsey dress; it is good enough 
to go to a Methodist prayer-meeting in." 

And to the prayer-meeting she went, with 
her linsey-woolsey dress, and her baby in 
her arms, and there they talked, and they 
prayed, and they sung ; and all the time she 
sat still, and said to herself, " What abomin- 
able lies ! The devil is in them !" By and 
by a little girl, eleven years of age, got up 
and told her experience, and as the tears 
streamed down the little girl's face, she could 
not find it in her heart to say the devil was 
in her. And just then a good sister said she 
thought she was tired holding her baby, and 
she took it out of her arms without waiting 
to ask her. When the little girl had finished 
speaking, an old man rose, and told how God 
had converted his heart, and then, continued 
Sister Le Blanc, "my wicked heart was 
touched, and when they prayed again I got 
down upon my knees, and I cried to God for 
mercy. My sins seemed all before me, as if 
painted behind a glass, where I could see 
them distinctly. But I prayed with the de- 



HOW SISTER LE BLANC WAS CONVERTED. 103 

termination to find pardon that night if it 
were possible, and the others prayed aloud 
for me, and I lifted up my own voice and 
prayed for myself, and at that very prayer- 
meeting God converted my heart. Thirty- 
five years have passed away, long enough to 
j udge of the reality of what passed on that 
memorable evening, and God is with me 
still." 

And then she went on to tell me how she 
obtained entire sanctification. "The sta- 
tioned Methodist preacher where I lived was 
a Brother De Wolf. His wife was a very 
holy woman. So was his sister. Their life 
was like an even-spun thread. I was con- 
victed by it of the need of something more 
than I had, and I determined, if that was en- 
tire sanctification, I would have it, and I set 
about seeking it with all my heart. Nine 
months afterward God blessed me with his 
perfect love, and I kept it by depending on 
God. In the morning I prayed to him to 
keep me until noon. I knew he could. At 
noon I prayed to be kept until night; and so 
I went on." 



104: FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

And there before me were this aged sister, 
and her husband, some years older than her- 
self, and their hearts seemed to be full of the 
love of God. It was good to be there. We 
knelt down and I prayed ; then another and 
another prayed. There seemed to be no 
hesitation, no fear of man. When, we rose 
from our knees I was obliged to leave ; but 
I left that spot as I would leave hallowed 
ground. 

One thought has often crossed my mind 
since. Who was Brother De Wolf, the 
preacher in the Champlain country ? Where 
are his devoted wife and sister? Where is 
the sister who invited sister Le Blanc to the 
prayer-meeting? Probably long ago they 
have gone up higher ; but their labor has 
not been in vain. O, that there might be 
mauy among us of the same spirit who will 
" go and do likewise." 

Since writing the above sketch, I have re- 
ceived a letter from Sister Le Blanc, and one 
from her son-in-law, some passages of which 
I translate. They are as follows : 

" Dear Brother, — We have not forgotten 



A SUDDEN DESTRUCTION. 105 

the evening that yon came to onr house. I 
thank the Lord that my son-in-law then 
found the peace of God, and has given his 
name to the Church." 

Her son-in-law writes : 

" Dear Brother in our Lord, — I have set 
out in the good road to save my soul, and I 
expect that my wife and children will follow 
me." 



A SUDDEN DESTRUCTION. 

I have no doubt that the truth of the follow- 
ing passage of Scripture is often shown by 
the daily scenes of life, if the circumstances 
were noted and remembered : 

" He that being often reproved, hardeneth 
his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and 
that without remedy." 

There was an old gentleman who lived not 
far from where I preached at that time, who 
was noted in the neighborhood as a Sabbath- 
breaking, swearing, wicked man. I had 
called once or twice at the house, but had 



106 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

not found him at home. One day he was 
sitting by the stove as I entered, and I took 
a seat by one side of it, while he sat by the 
other, and we were soon engaged convers- 
ing on the subject of religion. I urged him 
to forsake his sins and seek religion. But 
when I came so near to his own case, I ob- 
served he did not relish my remarks, and soon 
I could get but little reply from him, but a 
simple yes or no. He would consent to 
nothing, neither to serve God, nor to give 
up sin, nor try to pray. I was obliged to 
leave him with but little satisfaction to my- 
self. 

Yery shortly afterward, and the very next 
thing I heard of him was, that as he was 
crossing the railroad track in his wagon, the 
cars came upon him, struck one of his 
wheels, overturned the wagon, and killed 
him instantly. 



THE DYING SINNEK. 107 



THE DYING SINNER. 

Lt the summer of 1854, we had a great deal 
of cholera in Detroit, more, during one or 
two weeks, in proportion to the size of the 
city, than there was in the city of New- 
York during the first and most malignant 
visitation in the year 1832. Our French 
church stood in that part of the city where 
it prevailed most, and I had frequent occa- 
sion to meet with cases of the most distress- 
ing character. It took its victims from our 
Sabbath school, from our congregation, and 
from the families of our Church members, 
but it was a little singular that not one of 
our members was taken from us. It seemed 
as if our little band was literally included 
under the promise : " Thou shalt not be 
afraid for the terror by night ; nor for the 
arrow that flieth by day ; nor for the pesti- 
lence that walketh in darkness ; nor for the 
destruction that wasteth at noonday." 

I was sent for late one evening to visit a 
person who had been attacked by it, and 



108 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

was conducted to one of those wretched 
houses which fester in every large commu- 
nity. I found a very intelligent young 
woman in great agony of mind. She was 
quite rational, and seemed to understand per- 
fectly her condition. She had no hope, no 
trust in Christ, not a ray of light to cheer the 
dark valley on which she was about to enter. 
Once, she said, she had tried to be a Chris- 
tian. Once she had looked up to God as her 
Father and her Friend. Once she had looked 
forward to heaven as her home. But she 
had yielded to the tempter, she had stepped 
aside, and then her course continued down- 
ward. I find in my journal the following 
entry in reference to her: 

" I have visited six cases of cholera to-day, 
one a terrible one. Poor woman ! how she 
cried, \ Lord, have mercy ! Lord, have mercy P 
as she panted for breath." 

I knelt down and prayed for her, but it 
seemed to produce no change in her feelings. 
I passed from the chamber toward the front 
door. There was but one room between 
them, one side of which was occupied by 



A FRENCH COUNT. 109 

decanters, glasses, goblets, and whatever else 
was necessary to furnish a large bar of 
liquors. It was a strange contrast to me as 
the door between them stood open, that dy- 
ing woman, and those polished bottles stand- 
ing in array, as if newly brightened up for 
an evening's revelry. 

She died during the night, to all appear- 
ance in the same dark despair in which I 
had found her. 



A FRENCH COUNT. 

A very handsome young man, very well 
dressed, called on me one day. I could not 
help observing him. His fine complexion, 
contrasted with his jet black beard and dark 
eyes, and his decidedly foreign expression 
of countenance, would have graced any 
drawing-room or parlor of the Fifth Avenue. 
Besides, he spoke French with an accent per- 
fectly unexceptionable. 

He was, he said, a younger scion of a noble 
family, and bore in France the title of count, 



110 FEENCH MISSION LIFE. 

but his health had failed, his lungs had be- 
come diseased, and he was no longer able 
to attend to business. He had need of the 
air of the country, and as he had understood 
the poor-house of the county was about 
thirteen or fourteen miles from the city, he 
would feel extremely grateful to me if I 
would obtain for him a ticket of admission. 

After some religious conversation, and 
after handing him some French tracts and a 
New-Testament, I prayed with him, and 
then proceeded to the proper office. The 
ticket was given without any hesitation, and 
the next morning he went out to his new 
country residence. 

The readiness with which he had listened 
to religious conversation, and received re- 
ligious tracts, rather pleased me, and I re- 
gretted that I had no better place to send 
him than to the county house. However, 
his appearance did not indicate bad health, 
and I hoped I would be able to see him 
often again. He remained but a short 
time there, and went I know not whither, and 
very soon I heard he was dead. I have 



, A FRENCH COUNT. Ill 

often thought of that young man. A stran- 
ger, like so many others, to our language, 
habits, and people, he seemed anxious to 
trouble no one. 

He never spoke of pecuniary want, nor 
intimated that he wished my help, and I 
never even found out where he had lived pre- 
viously. Sometimes young men who have 
been in better circumstances have a great 
reluctance to making known their residence, 
where it does not correspond with their ap- 
pearance. I have no doubt that often he 
felt the need of sympathy, and knew not 
where to seek for it. 

How often, surrounded as we are with the 
blessings of a bountiful country, and kind 
friends, we have cause to remember what 
was addressed to the Jews in the nineteenth 
chapter of Leviticus : 

" But the stranger that dwelleth with you 
shall be unto you as one born among you, 
and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye 
were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am 
the Lord your God." 



112 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 



JOSEPH AND HIS FATHER. 

Little Joseph's mother died of the cholera, 
which prevailed in Detroit during the sum- 
mer of 1854. His father, who was from 
France, and brought up a Roman Catholic, 
was a man of some ability and some educa- 
tion ; but intemperance seemed to have 
ruined him. For month after month when 
I have occasionally seen him he appeared to 
be always intoxicated. 'No one had any 
hopes of his reform. I have never known a 
more desperate case. It was a sad home for 
Joseph and his sister Mary. They were 
pretty children, and yet singularly contrasted. 
Both had the same large, dark, speaking 
eye ; both had the same regularity of feature 
and expressive mouth ; both had the same 
French contour of countenance. But Mary 
was always neat and clean ; Joseph in all 
circumstances, in all places, was just the re- 
verse. You could not find a more ragged 
boy, and I do not remember that I ever saw 
him in those days with a clean face except 



JOSEPH AND HIS FATHEK. 113 

once, and that was when I washed it my- 
self. 

Winter came on, and with it extreme 
poverty. Joseph's father drank too much to 
work, and the care both of his father and 
sister fell in a great measure upon Joseph. 
Not more than eleven years of age, and small 
of his age, nature had given him an energy 
and quickness beyond his years. Sometimes 
he would sell matches, sometimes sweep the 
crossings, and sometimes beg ; but he al- 
ways managed to bring home something for 
his father and sister to eat. Their fare was 
certainly not luxurious, but it was enough to 
keep them from starvation. I happened to 
be in the house one day when Joseph came 
in, and as he entered, with a most exultant 
air he drew from under his jacket a large 
piece of biscuit, which seemed to have been 
eaten on one side, and presented it to his 
father as if it had been a thousand dollar 
bill. On another occasion I found the old 
man at his table eating a piece of raw fat 
salt pork, no bread, no vegetables, nothing 

else whatever. 

8 



114 FKENCH MISSION LIFE. 

I thought it would be doing the child a 
service to get him into some situation, and 
spoke to one of my friends who kept a shoe 
store, who said he would take him as errand 
boy. I brought him to my house, washed 
his face, combed his hair, (it seemed as if it 
had not been combed before since his mother's 
death,) and presented him with a new cap. 
He remained four days in the shoe store ; his 
father could not afford to let him stay any 
longer ; begging was more profitable for the 
family. Joseph understood this better than 
anything else, for which, at the present mo- 
ment, necessity obliged him in part to re- 
linquish both selling matches and sweeping 
cross-walks. 

Spring came, and with it a crisis in Joseph's 
history. He still came to Sunday school-, 
but stated to me that he could no longer en- 
dure his father's drunkenness, and conse- 
quent ill-treatment. As I afterward learned, 
one day he suddenly left home, and wander- 
ed about the city during the day, and when 
night came, quietly slipped in under the floor 
of his father's house, and there slept. This 



JOSEPH AND HIS FATHER. 115 

was his regular bed for a week, every night 
overhearing his father's drunken vagaries, 
and safe from his violence. At the end of 
that time his father began to express aloud 
his desires that Joseph would come home 
again ; so coming out of his hiding-place and 
going in at the front door, he again under- 
took providing bread for the household. It 
was not long, however, before little Mary too 
was obliged to fly from her father, who was 
maddened by drink, and to seek refuge 
where she could. About the same time 
Joseph left again, and gathering together all 
the old clothes he could find, he made him- 
self a regular bed under the floor, and there 
slept. "When his father seemed thoroughly 
to miss him, and when, from his expressions 
overhead, he thought there was a probability 
of good treatment, he came up stairs again. 
The third time the little fellow fled. I will 
not say he was justified in thus leaving his 
home, but I will say that, from what I could 
see myself of his father, it was hard for 
Joseph to remain alone with him. 
This time he went away in reality, and 



116 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

found a home in a barn with three other 
boys, where they slept at night ; and after 
they had become acquainted with Joseph's 
abilities for begging, they sent him out to 
provide for the table of all, the same as he 
had done for the family at home. I after- 
ward asked him how he lived. 

" Well," said he, " we kept warm at night 
by putting a board over us." 

"Aboard!" said I. 

" O yes, we put the hay on us first, and 
then the board on the hay ; but by and by 
one boy got caught, and another went home, 
and there was only one left with me. My 
uncle found out where I was, and thought 
he could catch me ; I ran, and my dog ran 
with me, and when he had almost caught me, 
my dog seized him by the knee, and then he 
stopped, and I escaped." 

" And how did you get your meals ?" 

"Sometimes I sold matches and made a 
little money, and ' mornings' I went down to 
the market and took a bowl of coffee for four 
cents, and four cents' worth of cake. This 
was my breakfast. Then I went to a hotel." 



JOSEPH AND HIS FATHER. 117 

" A hotel !" 

"Yes, I got my dinner at a hotel." 

"But how?" 

"Why they gave me meat, and sausage 
and bread, with which, in an alley or in our 
barn, we made our dinner, and what was left 
served us for supper." 

It was about this time that I became most 
interested in the old man. I visited him 
often, but I cannot say that I ever found him 
at that time quite sober. However, I warned 
him as earnestly as I could of the conse- 
quences of continuing the use of liquor, and 
prayed earnestly that God would save him. 
It was a sad sight to behold him living alone 
and drinking himself to death. He was al- 
ways willing that I should pray with him, 
and seemed penitent while I talked with him. 
I invited him one evening to our class-meet- 
ing. When he came I was extremely mor- 
tified, and sorry that I had asked him, though 
I am not sorry now. He got up and 
spoke, and then got up and spoke again, 
and then again. It was very difficult for 
me to get him to stop, which I was the 



118 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

more anxious to do as his talk was very 
rambling. I had hoped the meeting might 
have made some kind of impression on him ; 
but he made rather an impression on the 
meeting, and seemed to destroy its serious- 
ness. 

Still I visited him, and prayed with him 
and for him. Last May our Maine law was 
to go into operation. Just about the day, 
if not the very day it was to commence, 
Joseph's father stopped drinking. There 
seemed to be a moral influence about the 
fact that liquor was forbidden to be sold, to- 
gether with the idea that I had sought him 
out and visited him in his degradation, 
which commenced in him the work of re- 
form. He remarked to me once or twice, 
"The Roman Catholic priests never came 
to try to save me, but you did." And yet I 
confess I did once have a feeling of shame 
when I met him at the gate so grossly 
intoxicated that he could understand noth- 
ing. Weeks wore away, and, to my ex- 
treme gratification, he continued perfectly 
sober. Now he would follow me in 



JOSEPH AND HIS FATHER. 119 

prayer, and pray aloud for himself, that 
God would have mercy upon him, un <pau- 
vrepecheur. 

One morning a gentleman, who knew 
who he was, found Joseph asleep in the 
street, his dog beside him, with a basket 
well filled with provisions, which he had 
begged the day before. Sitting down at 
night, he had fallen asleep, and thus had 
slept until morning. He brought him home. 
Mary came home of herself. 

" Does your father drink any now?" said 
I one day to Joseph. 

" No ; he is afraid of it." 

And so he has continued ever since. 
Every Sabbath morning he is regularly at 
our service, and he believes that God has 
changed his heart, and forgiven his sins. 
One day he said to me, 

"Sunday morning, while they were sing- 
ing the hymn, O what peace and joy ran 
through my heart ! Vne jpaix inexprim- 
dble" said he, with great emphasis. 

I have found out that he is a pretty good 
singer since God hg,s touched his heart 



120 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

Yesterday I listened to him singing the 
beautiful hymn which commences, 

" Que Jesus est charitable, 
Que sa grace est ineffable ; 
II recoit a bras ouverts 
Les pecheurs les plus pervers." 

The last two lines of which, "He receives 
with open arms the most perverse sinners," 
seemed to apply so peculiarly to himself. 

Joseph, too, is much changed. Religion 
seems to have imparted both to himself and 
his father ideas of cleanliness and propriety. 
The last time I was in the house his father 
was mending or making up some article of 
clothing for him, and thinks he will soon 
get him out of his rags. Tailoring, however, 
is not his trade ; he is an engineer, a good 
workman, I should judge ; but his eyes have 
been so injured, I think by liquor, that he 
cannot work at his trade. He and Joseph, 
with their little hand-cart or wagon, make a 
living for the present by peddling matches 
and other small articles. Joseph says that 
he is going to be a Christian, and has given 
his heart to God. Little Mary says she 



JOSEPH AND HIS FATHER. 121 

means to be a Roman Catholic. Her father 
told me yesterday, this is because he used to 
teach them the doctrines of that Church. 
If their father should be faithful, my hope 
is that they may both become useful Chris- 
tians. 

* o a « o » o 

Little Mary has quite given up the idea of 
being a Romanist. 

The dear child, and a beautiful, intelligent 
child she is, has sought the Saviour, and 
made a profession of religion; she and 
Joseph, and their father, joined the Church 
on probation before I left. 

They are all fine singers, and most delight- 
fully do their full, clear voices ring out 
the melody of their French airs, as they sing 
them to our hymns. 

An elder brother also joined on probation 
on the eve of my departure. 



122 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 



SYSTEMATIC GIVING. 

At one of those social meetings called " do- 
nations," I observed an excellent brother 
whom I knew full well, acting as door-keep- 
er. It was a cold night, and to occupy this 
post all the evening, a tiresome office. Some 
one offered to relieve him, but he declined 
any assistance, as if preferring to perform 
himself what another might consider an 
humble duty. I was led to remark it from 
the fact that he was one of the first men in 
the Church, had himself given fifty dollars 
in money to the same donation, and when 
they came to reckon up the total, finding it 
fell short between two and three dollars of 
the even sum of four hundred, he put his 
hand in his pocket, and laid down the two 
dollars and upward, with the remark, "Make 
it four hundred." 

I had observed this brother during my 
residence in Detroit. I was told that he had 
commenced a poor boy, and God had pros- 
pered him until he was now well off. But 



SYSTEMATIC GIVING. 123 

as riches increased he set not his heart on 
them, but gave more and more liberally. I 
had occasion to know of some of his offerings 
to the cause of God for three years, and I 
noticed that every year they were double or 
more than the double of those of the pre- 
vious years, and God, to whom belong the 
cattle upon a thousand hills, as he gave 
blessed him with increasing substance. 

I knew another, a young man, who 
possessed nothing but what he earned, and 
that was not much, who gave the tenth of 
all he received to charitable purposes. His 
income on an average was between two and 
three hundred dollars ; out of this sum he 
gave, therefore, between twenty and thirty 
dollars to the Church and to the poor. At 
the end of four or five years his income in- 
creased, and he married. Now his faith 
failed him, and instead of a tenth he began 
to give only a twentieth, or five per cent, on 
all he received. He continued giving this 
amount for some time, and until his con- 
science smote him. He had read how much 
the ancient people of Israel gave by God's 



124 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

special commandment, not only a tenth of 
their produce, but an offering on their cat- 
tle, an offering on their children, as if every- 
thing was thus set apart to the service of 
God ; and he returned to his old rule, and 
gave a tenth again, and still continues to do 
so. 

One Sabbath I preached from the text, 
1 Cor. xvi, 1, 2, and read some extracts from 
one of the prize essays on Systematic Benef- 
icence. The next week as I visited a family 
which formed part of my congregation, the 
lady of the house remarked, "That is the 
doctrine I believe in. I have always told my 
husband we should practice it, and if you 
have the book I should like to buy it." I 
sold her on the spot a copy of the prize 
essays, bound together, which I had with 
me, and if any brother should read this arti- 
cle, who does not give regularly a per cent- 
age on all he receives, I say to him, adopt 
this plan at onoe ; it will tend to make your 
business prosper, and, what is better still, it 
will tend to the prosperity of your soul. 



FIVE LETTERS 



BISHOP OP DETROIT. 



LETTERS 



THE BISHOP OP DETROIT. 



The five following letters, which were origin- 
ally published in the Detroit Daily Tribune, 
were written to the Roman Catholic Bishop 
of Detroit, Michigan, residing in Detroit, 
under circumstances which I will relate. 

We had moved into our new church edi- 
fice, and were praying and laboring for the 
conversion of sinners, and rejoicing that our 
efforts were in some measure blessed, when 
my attention was arrested by an article in 
the organ of the bishop, a paper called the 
Catholic Vindicator, in which it very seri- 
ously charged us with buying our converts 
by giving them money to renounce Roman- 



128 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

ism. I thought I would meekly suffer and 
say nothing. 

Some weeks afterward, a second article 
appeared, repeating the same slander, with 
various remarks respecting our Church. 

I thought then that I ought hardly to keep 
silent, especially as the accusation was not 
against me alone, but against the whole of 
our Church. As they had twice thrown 
down the gauntlet publicly, it seemed to me 
now best to take it up. I therefore addressed 
the following letter to the bishop : 



FIRST LETTER. 

Right Rev. Bishop Lefevre, of Detroit : 

Sir, — As the Detroit Catholic Vindicator 
professes to be " the official organ of the 
diocese of Detroit," I address you on the sub- 
ject of two articles, which have lately ap- 
peared in its columns. They are contained 
in the issues of June 4th, and August 18th. 
In the first of these articles the following 
language is used : " "We had designed, at 
some future time, to refer to the practice of 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 129 

a conventicle established in this city, under 
the name of the ' French Methodist Church,' 
for the purpose of exposing its paltry and 
disreputable course of proceeding in buying 
converts to give credit to its miserable and 
false pretensions of being a teacher of Chris- 
tian doctrine." In the other article language 
is used of the same import. 

I am the pastor of the Church above re- 
ferred to, and I now ask of you, as the head 
of your diocese, and of its organ, to prove 
this twice-repeated assertion, an assertion 
which, when I first heard it, appeared too 
absurd and too ridiculous to notice. It is also 
stated in the first of these articles, that Mr. 
Pepin had been bought to embrace Protest- 
antism. It is well known among those who 
are members of the Church which Mr. Pe- 
pin joined, on renouncing Romanism, that 
he became a Protestant, and joined the 
Methodist Church, some time before he was 
employed as Bible agent. He then began 
first of his own accord, to distribute Bibles, 
without any idea of reward ; and after some 
time he was employed as regular agent or 
9 



130 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

colporteur. He never received anything, 
directly or indirectly, for becoming a Protest- 
ant, and the idea never would have occurred 
to us, had it not been suggested by others. 
I never have in any way tried to induce any 
person or persons to join our Church for 
money or any temporal benefit. We cer- 
tainly do not wish among us persons who can 
be influenced by such motives. People 
have come to me, professing to be members 
of your Church, or brought up in it, who 
have wished me to give them money, or 
something else, intimating their willingness 
to attend or join our Church, if I would do 
so ; and I have taken pains to explain to them 
that we never did so. I am sorry they have 
not been trained to better religious principles. 
But I will tell you what I have done ; I 
have gone among the poor of this city, for I 
thought that was a part of my duty as a 
minister, and I have found many persons of 
your Church, suffering from the actual want 
of food and other necessaries, and I have re- 
lieved them again and again, and when my 
own resources have failed me, I have so- 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 131 

licited aid from other persons. I have done 
this not only for your people, but for Prot- 
estants also just as I met with them, because 
my conscience would not permit me to see 
them suffer, when it was in my power to re- 
lieve them ; and for this the Yindicator says 
I have bought persons to join our Church. 
But a better authority tells me, " Feed the 
hungry and clothe the naked." 

I have done more. I have found whole 
families of five or six children among your 
people in this city, in which these children 
did not know their letters, and I have urged 
their parents to send them to any school they 
approved of themselves. Was this wrong ? 

It is true, some have left your Church and 
j oined the French Methodist Church. Some 
of them were once profane, intemperate, or 
worldly. They are not so now. When they 
look back, they repent of their past sins, and 
trust to Christ for pardon, and are now lead- 
ing a new life. Is this wrong ? 

It is true, they do not pray any longer to 
the saints, because they believe that the time 
spent in prayer to the saints, is better spent 



132 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

in prayer to God. Do you not think so 
yourself? They do not bow before any 
images or pictures, because they believe it is 
better to bow before an invisible God. They 
do not receive absolution from any clergy- 
man, because they believe it is the office of 
the Holy Spirit to speak inwardly, peace and 
pardon to the guilty soul. They think this 
is God's work and not man's. Is this wrong ? 

Sir, I indulge in no vituperative language ; 
I cannot, and do not pretend to match any 
one in low or vulgar words. But I have a 
right to ask, and do ask, that you or the 
organ of your diocese should give some proof 
of what has been stated. Bring forward the 
person. Name the man, woman, or child, 
to whom I or any person connected with our 
Church, has ever made or hinted any such 
offer, and let him testify. If you cannot, I 
ask that this letter be published in the Vindi- 
cator with an acknowledgment of the wrong. 
I am sir, with respect, &c, yours truly, 

Thomas Carter, 
Pastor of the French M. E. Church. 

Detroit, August 26th, 1853. 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 133 



SECOND LETTER. 

The letter which I have given in the pre- 
vious pages, called forth a reply from the 
bishop's organ, in which, avoiding the ques- 
tion at issue, it goes on to cast reflections on 
the public exercises of Methodism, such as 
its prayer and class meetings, and love- 
feasts. 

I then addressed to him a second letter, 
which ran thus : 

Right Rev. Bishop Lefevre of Detroit : 

Sir, — Not long since a statement was 
made in your organ, the Catholic Vindicator, 
that the French Methodist Church bought 
converts. I addressed to you a letter, re- 
questing that some proof of this might be 
given, or else a public acknowledgment 
made of the error. Neither one nor the other 
has been done, and I am obliged to draw the 
conclusion, and leave it on the public mind, 
that you permit your religious organ to 
make random statements to the prejudice 



134 FRENCH MISSION LIFE* 

of others, which it cannot prove, and which 
it will not honorably take back. 

Had your organ frankly taken back the 
statement, it would, perhaps, have better 
satisfied your people in this city, many of 
whom, I am glad to state, are far above the 
mercenary motives imputed to them by the 
Yindicator, men who would scorn to make 
religion a trade, and scorn to suspect it in 
others, unless supported by actual proof. 

I will here also protest against another 
imputation cast upon the members of your 
Church by the Vindicator. It is contained 
in the number of September 17, 1853, and 
is as follows: "The groanings, corporeal 
excitement of love-feasts, and other rantings 
in Methodist worship, are to Catholics sub- 
jects for amusement." Suppose, when 
Methodists pray in earnest and aloud, it is 
nothing but corporeal excitement ; suppose, 
when they sing praises to God, it is nothing ; 
are they, therefore, proper subjects of 
amusement? They might be, to dissipated 
young men, but not certainly to any one 
who regards the conscience of another. 



LETTEES TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 135 

You are too much of a gentleman yourself 
to make amusement of such things, and 
there are many Roman Catholics in Detroit 
of like feeling. I am surprised that your 
organ, with so little ceremony, places Eoman 
Catholics in the seat of the scorner. 

But while I defend your people from un- 
just imputations cast upon them, I must 
honestly and openly say that I disapprove of 
many of your doctrines. In some things, 
perhaps, we would agree, as, for instance, we 
have a steadfast faith in the Holy Trinity, 
three equal persons in one God: that 
Christ our Saviour was born miraculously of 
the blessed Virgin, and thus took our nature 
upon himself, and was crucified for the sins 
of men, and rose again and ascended to 
heaven: that for the righteous there is an 
everlasting heaven, and for the wicked an 
eternal hell. I am sure you believe these 
things as well as myself, but in other 
points we would disagree. Permit me to 
refer to one, and I do so, my dear sir, 
in a kind spirit: it is proper I should do 
so. Yery soon you and I will be in the 



136 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

world of spirits, and if I candidly believe 
that you or any of your people are 
making a grand mistake which puts in 
danger your immortal interests, is it not 
right to state it? And I believe you are a 
man of too much courtesy to despise the 
motives which prompt me. What is the 
grand question for men to decide upon this 
earth ? You will readily answer, The grand, 
the important question is, to know how to 
become a Christian, and thus be prepared 
for a better world. This certainly is true. 
Millions of ages will prove it through all 
eternity. How, then, shall we become Chris- 
tians according to the teaching of your 
Church ? I will quote from your catechism, 
so that I may be perfectly understood. The 
catechism I refer to was published in Bos- 
ton in the year 1846, by Patrick Donahue, 
with the approbation of Bishop Fenwick. 
On page 28, you will find the follow- 
ing: 

" What is baptism ? It is a sacrament by 
which we are made Christians, children of 
God, and heirs of heaven, and are cleansed 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 137 

from original sin, and also from actual sins, 
if we be guilty of any." 

I said to myself, as I read this, Can it be 
possible that the millions who compose the 
Roman Catholic Church are taught this doc- 
trine? You will remember, sir, that this 
was the very thing for which our blessed 
Redeemer so severely rebuked the Pharisees 
when he was on earth, telling them that they 
cleansed the outside of the cup, while within 
it was full of wickedness. And you can 
yourself imagine the effect upon a people 
who are taught from their infancy that a 
mere outward ceremony is sufficient to make 
them Christians. And this catechism you 
teach in your schools, in your large Churches, 
and at your firesides; and while they be- 
lieve that baptism is being made a Christian, 
will they not stop at the form, and believe 
that by receiving the form they have also 
the reality? Permit me to say, dear sir, 
that to be made a Christian is a greater 
thing than to be baptized with water. 
Water baptism is good, but yet it is an ex- 
ternal sign only. He who is a Christian is 



i 



138 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

made so by the Spirit of God. His inward 
nature is changed ; his character is changed. 
God has given him a new heart, as he said 
of Saul, " I will give you a new heart." He 
is full of the graces of the spirit, love, gentle- 
ness, meekness, humility, kindness ; he loves 
God, he loves his enemies, he loves every 
one. 

It seems as if the ancient Pharisees had 
some idea similar to that entertained by 
your Church. For our Saviour said to one 
of them in the third chapter of John : " Ex- 
cept a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God," and the Pharisee not un- 
derstanding him, Jesus repeated : " Except a 
man be born of water and of the Spirit, he 
cannot enter into the kingdom of God," as 
if he had said, water baptism is not enough, 
but he must be born of the Spirit also. And 
then Christ goes on speaking of a spiritual 
change, without once again in the whole 
chapter speaking of water baptism. 

Is it not proper I should write to you 
plainly, if I do so in the right spirit, because, 
my dear sir, great interests are at stake? 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 139 

You are at the head of a multitude of people, 
who are looking to you for spiritual food 
and spiritual direction. If you are truly 
converted, and if you will faithfully strive to 
lead them to seek the same conversion 
through the Spirit of God, and to become 
real Christians, a bright crown awaits you in 
heaven. But if you allow the souls who are 
under your spiritual direction, to believe 
that baptism makes them Christians, and to 
go into eternity with such a preparation, 
what a condemnation will be yours at the 
judgment day, and what reproaches those 
souls will heap upon you through all eternity. 

I have thus frankly stated to you what I 
think upon one point. I hope I have done 
so kindly. My great desire is that you and 
your people shall not trust to baptism or any 
other outward form, instead of the great 
spiritual regeneration so often referred to in 
the New Testament. 

With great respect, I am yours truly, 

Thomas Carter, 
Pastor of the French M. E. Church. 



140 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 



THIRD LETTER. 

The organ of the bishop answered this letter 
in a long article of two columns, with the 
very Christian and courteous title: 

" A Blast from the two-penny Trumpet of 
Thomas Carter." 

I replied to this article by the following 
letter : 

Right Rev. Bishop Lefevre of Detroit : 

Sir, — As an example of Christian courtesy 
and Christian charity, I cite the commence- 
ment of your organ's editorial of October 
15 : " A Blast from the two-penny Trumpet 
of Thomas Carter. Mr. Thomas Carter, 
whose evangelical snufflings and winnings," 
&c, &c. The whole of two columns is of a 
like character. And this is the leading arti- 
cle of the religious organ of the Roman 
Catholic diocese of Michigan. 

As an example of Christian fairness, the 
same article furnishes us also with an illus- 
tration. I used in my last letter these 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 141 

words : " He who is a Christian is made so 
by the Spirit of God." And your organ, all 
through its article, represents that I advo- 
cate some other mode of becoming a Chris- 
tian than by the Holy Spirit, knowing that 
many of its readers have never seen my let- 
ter. I think you would not recommend us 
to imitate this public example of candor, 
coming from your religious exponent, the 
Catholic Vindicator. 

Tou will observe that the position it takes 
on the subject of baptism is, that unless 
some obstacle is presented by the recipient, 
the baptism of water and of the Holy Spirit 
are one and the same thing. To prove this 
it is unfortunate in its quotations. He re- 
fers to the text I cited, " Except a man be 
born of water and of the Spirit," &c. Does 
not our Saviour make them two here ? He 
does not say, " Except a man be born of the 
Spirit through the means of water ;" but he 
distinguishes them by the word " and," and 
thus puts them distinct from each other. 
Suppose I say, " Except a man be baptized 
and confirmed, he cannot be a true Roman 



142 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

Catholic ;" are baptism and confirmation 
therefore the same thing ? 

He quotes also : " He that believeth and 
is baptized shall be saved.' 5 Is not he who 
truly believes in Christ a Chri&tian already ? 
Has he not already received the Holy Spirit, 
which enabled him thus to believe? He 
must certainly be baptized if he have op- 
portunity ; but if he be a Christian already, 
baptism does not make him so. If baptism 
makes us Christians, how was the thief upon 
the cross made a Christian ? 

Again, he cites : " Eise up and be bap- 
tized, and wash away thy sins." If Saul's 
sins were washed away by baptism, it was 
enough to say to him, " Eise up and be bap- 
tized." There was no necessity to add the 
rest. Suppose he had said, " Eise up and be 
baptized, and partake of the holy commu- 
nion;" would baptism and communion be 
the same thing? 

Again : In Titus iii, 5, of the Douay Bible, 
you will find his next quotation : " Laver of 
regeneration and renovation of the Holy 
Ghost ;" and, strange to say, in the whole 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 143 

chapter, in the whole book of Titus, baptism 
is not mentioned at all. 

Again : St. Peter expressly states, in the 
passage he refers to, that it is not the putting 
away of the filth of the flesh which saves us, 
but the answer of a good conscience toward 
God; whereby he shows that he does not 
mean that water baptism saves us at all. 

I will now cite two passages, which dis- 
tinctly show my position, and I cite them 
from your own version of the Douay Bible. 
John the Baptist said, in Matthew iii, 11 : 
"I indeed baptize you in water unto pen- 
ance, but he that shall come after me shall 
baptize you in the Holy Ghost." Are bap- 
tism by water and the Holy Ghost the same 
here? 

Acts x, 44 : " While Peter was yet speak- 
ing these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all 
them that heard the word." See verse 47 : 
" Then Peter answered, Can any man forbid 
water, that these should not be baptized, 
who have received the Holy Ghost as well 
as we ?" Is receiving the Holy Ghost the 
same as baptism here ? 



144 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

The consequences of your doctrine, my 
dear sir, are terrible. You baptize a man, 
and thus make him believe he is a Christian. 
You then confirm him, and make him a per- 
fect Christian, according to the following 
question and answer of your Catechism, 
page 28 : 

"What is confirmation?" 

" It is a sacrament, in which, by the im- 
position of the bishop's hands, we receive 
the Holy Ghost, in order to make us strong 
and perfect Christians." 

You then go to him as he dies, and by 
another ceremony you make him believe that 
he is ready for death, according to the fol- 
lowing question and answer from your Cate- 
chism, page 31 : 

" What is extreme unction ?" 

"It is a sacrament that gives grace to 
die well." 

And then, if some poor, trembling soul 
should doubt, and fear to lean his salvation 
upon these ceremonies, you follow him into 
the next world, and assure him that in purga- 
tory small deficiencies shall be purged away. 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 145 

O, sir, if you, or the pastors under you, 
have any pity for the souls in your charge, 
let them not thus pass through life, and be- 
lieve themselves to be Christians. Say to 
them, as our blessed Redeemer said, in Mat- 
thew xvii, 26 : " Cleanse first that which is 
within the cup and platter, that the outside 
of them may be clean also." 

I am, with much respect, yours, &c, 

Thomas Carter. 

Deteoit, October 18, 1853. 



FOURTH LETTER. 

"Whether the foregoing letter was too plain, 
or too searching, or too Scriptural, for the 
bishop, I am not able to say ; but one thing I 
know, the truth contained in it acted as a 
perfect quietus both on him and his organ. 

Week after week passed, and not a word, 
not a line appeared to trouble us. 

So forward at first to provoke a contro- 
versy, the Romanists were now content to 
10 



146 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

disappear from the field entirely. I then 
* addressed to him another letter in these 
terms : 

Eight Eev. Bishop Lefeyre : 

Sir, — Not long since your organ, the 
Catholic Yindicator, made the statement 
that the French Methodist Church in this 
city bought converts. I asked for proof or 
a retraction. Neither has been given. 
Now, I leave you to judge, my dear sir, of 
the conclusion which must be drawn in the 
public mind. 

I then showed by your Catechism, that 
your way of making Christians was by bap- 
tism. Tour organ made an attempt to re- 
ply. I then showed by the Bible, that to be 
made a Christian was far more than to be 
baptized; and as your organ has made no 
reply, may I not hope that it begins to see 
the folly of supposing that any outward 
ceremony can make a man a child of God? 

Permit me now, sir, to call your attention 
to a practice in your Church, fraught with 
sin, and which prompts me to ask the ques- 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 147 

tion of you, whether any person can be a true 
Eoman Catholic without being an idolater. 
I will first quote from your Catechism, pub- 
lished in Boston, by Patrick Donahue, with 
the approbation of Bishop Fenwick, page 38. 
You will find there the following question 
and answer : 

" In what sentiments should we place our- 
selves upon our knees before the priest, 
when we are at confession ? 

"In the sentiments of a criminal, who is 
about to offer honorable amends to God ; 
viewing Jesus Christ in the person of the 
priest." 

Behold, then, the candidate for confession, 
on his knees before the priest, viewing 
Jesus Christ in the person before him. Do 
you not shudder at the thought that any one 
should kneel before you, and be taught to 
view our blessed Redeemer in your person ? 
and yet here is your Catechism showing the 
doctrine of your Church. 

I know of no parallel to this, except the 
case of the Grand Lama of Thibet, a man 
whose dwelling is in a palace near the banks 



148 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

of the Burrampooter, into whose body their 
deity is supposed to descend, and the 
heathen Thibetans view their divinity in 
the person of this man. 

It is true, many of your people in this 
country are too intelligent thus to regard 
their priests, but your doctrines are just the 
same ; and the fact is, such people are get- 
ting away from Romanism, and are no 
longer Romanists in the full sense of the 
word. Allow me to ask, are there not many 
persons who attend your mass, who are 
called Roman Catholics, who never go to 
confession? And is there not an in- 
ward religious feeling in the hearts of such 
persons which revolts at the practice to 
which I have referred ? 

I will secondly show, by a very short but 
very conclusive quotation, that real Roman 
Catholics adore the cross. You may be 
surprised when I quote my authority. I cite 
the Catholic Vindicator, your own organ. 
In the issue of October 1, 1853, page 3, you 
will find an article entitled "China," in 
which the Chinese insurgents are referred to, 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 149 

and it is stated that the Eoman Catholics in 
Nankin are persecuted. The letter which 
forms the principal part of the article, is 
written by M. Maresca, apostolical adminis- 
trator at Nankin. The two following para- 
graphs are from the letter : 

"The Christians replied that they were 
Catholics, and did not know any other re- 
ligion." 

"On the 25th of March, the Christians 
were adoring the cross, according to the cus- 
tom on Good Friday." 

The apostolical administrator here can- 
didly and frankly gives the right name to 
what you call in Protestant countries re- 
ligious respect. Could any heathen use 
plainer language when he speaks of adoring 
images, the sun, moon, and stars? 

I will thirdly add, that you pray to de- 
parted saints to intercede for you. I need 
not prove this, because I know you will ad- 
mit it. Who, sir, was appointed by the 
Father as our intercessor ? What person is 
more willing to hear us, than all the saints 
in heaven? Who would be most ready to 



150 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

take up the prayer of the very worst sinner ? 

I answer, Christ the Saviour. In giving, 

then, to the saints prayers which belong to 

Christ, do you not give to them an honor 

which belongs to Christ? In the word of 

God persons never pray to departed saints, 

but to God alone ; and to God alone belong 

the prayers of his people. * 

I have thus explained to you one point 

which I believe to be extremely sinful in 

your Church. I have tried to do so, not by 

ridicule or hard words, but in courtesy and 

love. After your organ had twice drawn 

sword upon me, before I spoke, it might be 

wrong in me to remain silent. Accept, 

then, my dear sir, what I have said, as the 

evidence of a sincere desire to lead you or 

your people to a course of reflection which 

may be of benefit to you in the eternal 

world. 

Tours truly, 

Thomas Carter. 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 151 



FIFTH LETTER. 

The Romanists made no reply to this letter, 
and soon afterward I wrote to tlie bishop as 
follows : 

Eight Key. Bishop Lefevre, of Detroit: 

Sir, — You will remember that the occa- 
sion of my first addressing you, was the ap- 
pearance of two articles in your organ, the 
Catholic Vindicator, in reference to the 
French Methodist Church of this city, of 
which I am pastor. I then addressed to you 
a letter, to which your organ made an at- 
tempt to reply. A second letter called forth 
a second attempt. A third letter, and your 
organ, which was at first so ready to speak, 
had become dumb. A fourth letter, and 
your organ was still silent, and, I may add, 
has since continued so. I now address to 
you a fifth, suggested by the following re- 
markable passage in the letter of Bedini, the 
Pope's Nuncio, to the President of the 
United States. I refer you to the letter 



152 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

published in the Catholic Vindicator of 
February 4, 1854. 

" As we have been intrusted, by Divine 
commission, with the care of the Lord's 
flock throughout the world, we cannot allow 
this opportunity to pass without entreating 
you to extend protection to Catholic inhab- 
itants and their religion." 

As you are aware, this letter is addressed 
to the president of a country of which the 
great mass of the people are Protestants. 
Being such, you cannot but perceive, as a 
gentleman, that the sentiment contained in 
the above quotation, is a gross insult to us 
as a people ; and the more so as Bedini comes 
here on a professedly friendly mission. It 
is saying to the people of this country, that 
whoever here belongs to the Lord's flock is 
under his (the pope's) care. It is claiming 
the same jurisdiction over us as Protestant3 
that he claims over his Roman Catholic 
people ; or else it is telling us directly that 
we do not belong to the Lord's flock at 
all. 

Now, sir, you may hold whatever doc- 



LETTEES TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 153 

trines you please among yourselves, as to the 
perdition and damnation of all Protestant 
Christians ; but I do protest as an American 
citizen against such a statement, coming to 
us through our president, from the messen- 
ger of any foreign potentate whatever. But 
to claim dominion over the Lord's flock in 
these United States, comes with a very ill 
grace from one who but a little while ago 
was obliged to fly from his own people, and 
is now only held upon his throne by the 
bayonets of foreign soldiers. 

But I remark again, this assumption of 
dominion over the Lord's flock throughout 
this great nation, and throughout the 
world, is not only insulting to us, but it is 
revolting to many of your own people in 
this country. I have no doubt that it is 
<}uite agreeable to the Roman Catholic 
clergy; but, at the same time, I am con- 
vinced that Roman Catholics of this country 
have too much intelligence to receive, uni- 
versally, the doctrine that all Protestants are 
cut off from the Lord's flock unless they 
recognize the pope as their spiritual master. 



154: FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

I remark further, such a supremacy was 
not claimed by the popes or bishops of Rome 
themselves until centuries after our Saviour. 
As a man of education, you are well ac- 
quainted with the name of Gregory the 
Great. He was pope or Bishop of Rome in 
the latter part of the sixth century. You 
are aware that all Roman Catholics regard 
him as one of the popes, and have paid so 
much respect to his memory that they have 
canonized him as Saint Gregory. It was 
in his time that the bishop of Constantinople 
claimed the title of Universal Bishop to him- 
self ; a claim which called forth some epis- 
tles from Gregory to the Bishop of Con- 
stantinople and to Mauritius the emperor. 
In these epistles the following passage 
occur : 

" Our Lord says unto his disciples, Be ye 
not called "Rabbi, for one is your master, and 
all ye are his brethren. What, therefore, 
most dear brother, are you in the terrible 
examination of the coming Judge to say, 
who desire to be called not father only, but 
the general father of the world ?" 



LETTERS TO THE BISHOP OF DETROIT. 155 

" Beware of the sinful suggestions of the 
wicked. I beg, I entreat, and I beseech, 
with all possible suavity, that your brother- 
hood resist all those flatterers who offer you 
this name of error, and that you refuse to be 
designated by so foolish and so proud an ap- 
pellation." 

" And therefore I am bold to say that 
whoever adopts or affects the title of univer- 
sal bishop, has the pride and character of 
An ti- Christ, and is in some manner his fore- 
runner in this haughty quality of elevating 
himself above the rest of his order. And, in- 
deed, both the one and the other seem to 
split upon the same rock ; for as pride makes 
Anti-Christ strain his pretensions up to God- 
head, so whoever is ambitious to be called the 
only or universal prelate, arrogates to him- 
self a distinguished superiority, and rises as 
it were upon the ruins of the rest." 

I have given the English translation of 
the above passages, which you will find in 
the Epistles of Pope Gregory the Great, 
Book iv, Epistle 38, and Book 6, Epistle 30. 

You will thus perceive, my dear sir, that 



156 FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 

the present pope's pretension to the care of 
the Lord's flock throughout this country, and 
throughout the world, is not only a direct in- 
sult to our Protestant inhabitants,, many of 
whom humbly trust that they are numbered 
in the Lord's flock, but he who adopts it, 
according to the testimony of your own 
Saint Gregory, has the pride and character 
of Anti-Christ. 

I submit these two points to your candid 
meditation, believing that you have the in- 
telligence and education to appreciate the 
truths which I have stated. 

I am yours truly, 

Thomas Carter. 

Detroit, February 28, 1854-. 

Ever after this time, we had no trouble 
with the bishop or his organ. I never could 
find a word in the Yindicator afterward in 
reference to our Church, and we were left 
to pursue our way in peace. 



I Mat 19, 1847. 



FRENCH MISSION LIFE. 



CONCLUSION. 



157 



If any of my beloved brethren whose con- 
version or Christian experience is related in 
this volume, should meet with it in Detroit 
or elsewhere, I trust it will serve to remind 
them of the goodness of God, in leading 
them to him, and of their obligations to be 
faithful, until they shall receive the crown 
of life. 

My great hope and earnest prayer are, that 
they will continue united and strong in the 
Lord, and, holding up the hands of their 
present pastor, prosper, and greatly increase 
as a Church. 



THE END. 



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